


I'm Covered in the Colours (Pulled Apart at the Seams)

by asexual-fandom-queen (writeordietrying)



Series: ColdWestAllen Week 2016 [1]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, F/M, Hopeful Ending, Joe Really Doesn't Come Off Looking Good In This One, Joe West's A+ Parenting, Leonard Snart Doesn't Look That Great Either, Lots of Angst, M/M, Mentions of Canonical Character Death, Minor Cisco Ramon/Lisa Snart, Minor Oliver Queen/Felicity Smoak, Past Child Abuse, Trans Cisco Ramon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-13
Updated: 2016-11-13
Packaged: 2018-08-30 20:29:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8548111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writeordietrying/pseuds/asexual-fandom-queen
Summary: It’s a common misconception that people can only see in black and white until they meet their soulmate.
When Barry Allen is born, he's only able to see the colour red. When he meets Iris West in Kindergarten, she gives him yellow. When he meets Leonard Snart thwarting an armoured car robbery, he gives him blue. Written for Day 1 of ColdWestAllen Week 2016: Soulmate AU





	

**Author's Note:**

> This was... supposed to be a drabble. Needless to say, I think it kinda got away from me. 
> 
> So, this is a soulmate au, but I actually wanted to try something a bit different for this fic. I'm always fascinated by the different ways canon can be interpreted, and the specific challenges that come from working strictly within the canon of the source material. 
> 
> That being said, most of the scenes in this fic are either taken directly from canon or extrapolated from canon, with room, of course, for a few artistic touches and twists and made unique by their interpretations in this work. There are some scenes that don't comply with canon at all either, but I think that's part of the fun of it, too. Dialogue was especially fun to work with. It tried to keep it as 100% accurate to canon in scenes where I could, while still making it fit within the soulmate au, which was quite the exciting challenge. 
> 
> This style of fic may not be for everybody, but I hope for those that it is for, you enjoy! If you do, please leave me lovely kudos or comments! I always appreciate hearing from you!
> 
> Title taken from the song [Colors](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGulAZnnTKA) by Halsey.

It’s a common misconception that people can only see in black and white until they meet their soulmate. Instead, it’s like the world is dull,Barry’s mother explains one night as they lie together, curled deep in the calming warmth of his parents’ queen sized bed. 

Barry is only three, but others his age have already started identifying colours, their parents waiting anxiously to discover that one hue they can’t quite discern, the concrete proof that they have a soulmate out there somewhere, waiting to bring their child’s world into full, awe-inspiring colour, and Nora doesn’t want her son to fall behind. She opens a large cardstock book in their laps the same way she does every night and points to the image of a canary perched on a branch. 

“What colour is that, Barry?” Nora asks. They’ve run through the book so many times, there’s no way to get it wrong from memory alone. 

“Lellow,” Barrow replies. 

Nora beams. “Yellow,” she replies. “That’s right.” She moves farther down to the image of a jay, its ruffled wings spread mid-flight. “And what colour is that?” she asks. 

“Blue,” Barry says with a small, timid smile. 

“That’s my boy,” Nora encourages. Finally, they arrive at the last image on the page, a plump, proud cardinal with a tuft of feathers stuck up in the shape of a triangle at the top of it’s head. Instantly, Barry perks up, wiggling and bouncing atop the soft give of the mattress. 

“Red! That’s red,” Barry exclaimes without waiting to be promoted. Nora smiles, but she grimaces too, the clear difference in Barry’s reacting setting her on edge. They go through the rest of the colours in the book - green, purple, orange - and Barry always answers correctly, but never with the same enthusiasm he has for pinks and scarlets and garnets. 

When they get through the book, Nora moves onto the flash cards. They’re an old, tattered set, given to her and her husband at the hospital the day they brought Barry home, just as all parents receive. Nora slides them from their box and shuffles, becoming more and more wary as time goes on. 

“Alright, Barry,” Nora says, holding up the first card. The back says it’s green, which she can tell just as well by looking - she and Henry are soulmates after all, and forest green is the missing shade he brought into her life. “What colour is this?” she asks. 

Barry frowns. “Grey,” he says, and Nora’s heart sinks. 

She tries another card, this one a pastel periwinkle. 

“Grey,” Barry says again. Nora bites her cheek to keep herself from crying. 

“How about this one?” Nora asks, holding up a lemon yellow card. 

“Grey,” Barry says. 

“And this?” she tries once more, and the card this time is a bright cerulean. She holds her breath as she waits for a reply. 

Barry tosses his small body impatiently into the sheets with a loud, exasperated groan. “Is grey, Mommy,” he laments, none too happy with the tedium and monotony of their nightly routine. “Why always you show same one?” 

Nora tries for an easy, reassuring chuckle, but it comes out hollow, not that Barry seems to notice. “Just testing you,” she replies. “You’re a very smart boy, Barry. My smart, beautiful boy.”

Barry doesn’t catch the note of sadness in her tone. Instead, he reaches forward with curious hands and grabs for the pendant hanging from her neck. It was a present from Henry, when they’d first started dating. A symbol of the colour she’d brought into his life. 

“Do you know what colour that is, Barry?” Nora asks, and Barry beams. 

“Red,” he replies confidently. 

Nora offers up a watery smiles as Barry continues toying obliviously with the ruby in his hands. “That’s right,” she says. “It’s red.”

 

* * *

 

 

He hears them talking one night, his parents, when he gets up for a glass of water in the middle of the night. He’s just turned four, and he’s starting to realize there’s something different about him than the rest of the kids at daycare. They stumble over colours sometimes, sure, but they seem to know an awful lot more than Barry does. It makes him feel stupid and a little afraid. Listening to his mother and father fighting about it doesn’t help. 

“What if there’s nobody out there for him, Henry?” he hears his mother say. 

His father sighs. “I think you’re being a bit pessimistic,” he says. 

“Well,” she replies. “You’re the doctor. Have you seen anything like this before?” 

When his father doesn’t immediately reply, his mother nearly weeps. “Henry!”

“Yes, you’re right,” he says finally. “I’ve never seen anything like it. But so what? So what if Barry isn’t like everybody else? He’s still our son. And he’s an amazing kid. Somebody will love him, Nora. They have to.” 

Barry doesn’t stick around after that. His belly feels sore, like that time he snuck two extra hot dogs at Tony Woodward’s birthday party, even when his father warned him it would make him sick. He goes back to his room and forgets about the water, but he doesn’t forget their words.

 

* * *

 

 

“Mommy! Mommy! I found my yellow!” 

Barry screams outright as he bursts through the front door, dropping his backpack and his shoes in the middle of the hallway, after the school bus - the yellow school bus - drops him off at the end of his first day of elementary school. 

Nora comes out of the kitchen wiping her hands on an apron - the apron he’s been told so many times is orange but can now finally  _ see _ \- and Barry leaps immediately into her arms. 

“What’s going on?” Nora asks, Barry’s enthusiasm lost on her. 

“Yellow,” Barry says again. “I found her! I finally found her! And orange and gold, too!”

After Nora walks him through a deep breath, Barry explains the situation in a more coherent way, though just barely. He tells her about Iris West, who’s pretty and smells nice and is in Barry’s Kindergarten class. As soon as their eyes met, Barry’s world exploded in colour. His skin tingled from the moment he stepped foot in the building, escalating further and further as he followed one of the older kids waiting out front to his classroom. And then, there she was. 

“She’s beautiful, Mommy,” Barry adds as his story winds down. “Her hair’s all big and poofy, and her smile is really nice. I made her laugh and it was awesome. She’s so great!” 

“She sounds wonderful,” Nora replies. “I’d love to meet her.” 

“Yes,” Barry cheers, bouncing around the living room now, from sofa to armchair and clear across the floor. “Can she come over? I want Iris to come over!” 

Nora chuckles, feeling lighter than she has in years, since Barry’s been able to put names to colours. “One thing at a time,” she says. “Tell me about the colours, first. That must be nice, right?” 

She had to wait until she was a lot older than five to find her full colour. It’s hard to believe her son will hardly remember a time without it, especially given that he previously has so few. 

“I love colours,” Barry exclaims. “Almost as much as I love Iris.” 

That, Nora remembers, too. The sudden swell of affection that comes with finding your soulmate. “Everything must look so different for you now. And what a wonderful, sunny day for you to finally see the colour of the sky.” 

Barry stops bouncing. His nose wrinkles. “What do you mean?” he asks. “The sky’s the same colour as always.” 

Nora’s heart goes still in her chest, heavy like lead. “The sky doesn’t look different to you?” 

“No,” Barry says, as though it should be obvious. “The sky is grey, silly.” 

“And the grass?” Nora asks. 

Barry’s face scrunches up again. “Grey,” he replies. 

Nora doesn’t know what to think. For the first time in almost a year, she pulls the deck of flashcards from the bookshelf, wipes off a grimey layer of dust, and pulls the cards from the package. 

It doesn’t take long to work out that Barry, despite meeting his soulmate, still can’t distinguish the colour blue, or green, or purple. Henry’s still at work, but Nora can’t wait, searching through the assortment of papers Barry brought home in his backpack until she finds it, the parent list. She calls Joe West in a panic, unsure of what she’ll do if Iris can’t see blue either, and even more unsure of what she’ll do if she can. 

The conversation with Mr. West is short. He’s on his way out the door to work an evening shift - he’s a detective at the CCPD, Nora learns - but he passes the phone to his wife, Francine, to help fill in the gaps. The woman doesn’t seem entirely coherent as Nora speaks with her, but she does manage to work out that Iris isn’t seeing blues either. 

Nora wants to commiserate with Francine, wants someone to share the burden. With both of their husbands at work, it seems like the natural choice, but Francine hangs up quickly and leaves Nora with the echoing sound of a dial tone on her end instead. For a moment, Nora wonders about Iris, wonders for her safety and if her mother’s well, but ultimately, she leaves it. It’s none of her business, and with Barry still missing colours, she’s got more pressing concerns.

 

* * *

 

 

In the weeks following his mother’s death - his father’s arrest - Barry is stuck with a singular, repetitive thought he can’t shake. 

He wishes he and Iris had never met. 

Or rather that they’d met later, after that night, so that his mind would never draw the connection between her and The Man in Yellow that murdered his mom. He wishes it wasn’t her colour, that he didn’t know it was her colour, so the memory of seeing yellow for the first time - seeing Iris for the first time - wasn’t going to always be tainted by the memory of seeing his mother’s dead body on the kitchen floor. 

Joe takes him in. Even with Iris’ own mother dead, he says it’s because Barry is special, because Barry’s meant to be a part of their family, and he wouldn’t have it any other way. They never talk about the missing blue, even when the truth is right under their noses and feigning ignorance becomes even more stifling than acknowledging the truth would be. 

Barry and Iris talk about it all the time. Iris suggests that maybe one of them is colourblind, and that this is all they’ll ever see. Barry refutes it with hours spent at the library doing research, reading scientific journals and medical textbooks. He spends almost as much time researching soulmate colour vision as he does the weird and unexplained, still looking for a way to prove his father’s innocence well into his teens. He knows Iris doesn’t believe him, but she supports him, which is enough. It’s enough for Barry to forget he ever resented her for the colour she brought into his life, even if he saw that colour in terrible places doing terrible things. 

Iris wears a vibrant, canary yellow dress to prom, and Barry wears the tie to match.

 

* * *

 

 

The only thought Barry can muster as the lightning strikes him is of Iris. He wonders if this is why they never had blue, because the universe knew he would leave her someday, long before her time, and there was someone else out there, waiting for her. 

His first thought when he wakes up is that something has gone terribly, horribly, wrong with the universe’s plan. 

It does something strange and wonderful to Barry’s insides that Iris is still wearing her engagement ring, even after the nine months he’s spent in a coma. He doesn’t see it at first, not with the way she launches herself into his arms and kisses him for dear life, but he feels the cool press of metal against his cheek as she cradles his face and it makes his knees go weak. 

“Why didn’t anyone from S.T.A.R. Labs call me?” she asks, beyond euphoric, and maybe just the slightest bit annoyed. 

Barry chuckles and brushes his nose against hers. “I wanted to surprise you,” he says. 

Iris chuckles too. “Well, consider me surprised.” 

She tells him later that night, when they’re curled up in bed together, how much of a relief it is to feel her skin tingle again, the low grade hum of being close to your soulmate, after having spent so many nights apart. He tells her not long after about being The Flash, regardless of Joe’s warnings, because this isn’t a secret he can keep from her. He isn’t sure what it’ll mean for her safety, but he knows her to be smart and capable and competent, which is really all that matters.

 

* * *

 

 

Barry feels the tingling sensation building under his skin, so singular and unique, he should recognize it for what it is but doesn’t. And maybe that’s why, because he’s already felt this way before, and it’s not the kind of thing people feel twice. He’s following his team’s instructions, racing toward the armoured car in distress, covered head to toe in the Flash suit, and it doesn’t occur to him that he’s also racing toward his soulmate. Doesn’t occur to him until he’s pulled off one of the men’s masks and his whole world bursts into true, full colour for the first time.

Barry halts so abruptly his forward momentum sends him plummeting into the asphalt. He lands hard on his back and sucks in a pained breath. He blinks to clear the tears from his vision, then looks up at the sky. What he sees nearly takes his breath away. 

Blue. For the first time in twenty-five years, his entire life, Barry sees blue. 

He doesn’t have long to ponder this new revelation. Instead, he hears gunfire, and scrambles quickly to his feet. One of the robbers, thankfully not the one he’d unmasked, fires a round into a security guard before making a run for it. Barry takes a moment to consider the criminals as they flee but quickly realizes there’s nothing he can do if he wants to get the injured man to the hospital on time. 

When he returns to the scene, it’s as a CSI, and Joe instantly knows something is up. 

“I saw one of the robbers’ face,” Barry says, hoping to get away with the half-truth. He doesn’t know what to think or how to process what’s going on, and luckily, Joe lets it slide, escorting him back to the station to look through a book of mugshots. 

Barry finds the him easily enough, flipping through the pages at super speed. His heart hammers in his chest as his gaze fixes onto the other man’s crystalline blue eyes. 

“Leonard Snart,” Joe supplies as Barry points him out. Not that Barry can’t read, but given the circumstances, he’s grateful, still incapable of drawing his eyes away from Snart’s own. 

“Leonard,” Barry parrots. “That’s almost as bad as Bartholomew.” 

“Snart ain’t sexy either,” Joe jokes. A warm pit building low in his stomach tells Barry he might think otherwise and really, who has the right to look that good in a mugshot?

“Snart’s father was a cop,” Joe continues. “Was a bad cop. Took his anger out on his kids, ‘til he went to prison.” 

Barry heart thuds heavy in his chest, once, twice, before stopping altogether. His mouth goes dry and his stomach turns as his mind creates elaborate, horrific images of all the ways in which Joe might mean that. 

“Snart’s dad’s in prison too,” is all Barry says, because the alternative feels like screaming. “We should start a club.” 

Still, his voice must sound hollow, because Joe frowns at him. “Are you alright, son?” he asks. 

Before Barry can answer, Iris arrives with coffee and a smile, and guilt turns his stomach even more. She’s wearing a blue shirt, the one Joe got her for Christmas last year and promised looked good on her. It does, Barry realizes. So good. But he shouldn’t know that. Shouldn’t be able to see it for himself. 

As soon as Joe takes his coffee from the paper tray, Barry takes Iris by the elbow and leads her up to his lab. He needs to talk to her, to fill her in about what happened with Snart, but he doesn’t get the chance. Instead, Felicity Smoak is standing in his lab, taking a timeout from a tiff with Oliver Queen, which, she explains with a dramatic sigh and an eyeroll, is par for the course with their relationship, soulmates or not. 

And so, Iris and Barry take her back to S.T.A.R. Labs to meet the team and see firsthand how they operate. Caitlin is wary and Cisco is curious, but nothing throws Felicity off like the praise she gets from Wells. Barry wants to use the distraction as an opportunity to talk to Iris, but instead, Iris ropes Felicity back in, offering to take her out to the trivia contest at Jitters to brighten her spirits. 

The problem, Barry realizes the longer he tries to hide the day’s events from Iris, is that it’s hard to pretend you don’t see something, especially when it’s something society obsesses over. At first, it’s just hiding his newfound fascination with the world. When Barry was first able to see yellow - and Iris able to see red - they looked at everything all the time, seeing the world in a way they never saw it before. Now, he has to tamp down that childlike curiosity, lest he give himself away before he has the chance to talk to Iris properly. 

It doesn’t help that Felicity has all her colours, that they’re both seeing things that Iris can’t. Iris is sharp, she’s bound to pick up that something’s off and soon, and Barry doesn’t want to have this fight in public. He doesn’t want to have this fight at all, but he doesn't know what other option there is. He still feels sick with guilt, like he’s betraying her somehow by seeing the blues and greens and purples she can’t, because of somebody else. But he doesn’t want there to be somebody else. He just wants there to be Iris. He’s always wanted there to be Iris. 

Just as Iris seems sense something is off, Barry gets an alert from Cisco. Snart’s been spotted again, and the Flash needs to spring into action. Barry rambles off a quick apology but Iris and Felicity urge him to go. Felicity understands, and Iris is just beginning to. Being a superhero is a full time job.

 

* * *

 

 

“Let’s see how fast you are.”

The gentle tingling in Barry’s skin from being so close to his soulmate is overpowered by the excruciating burn of whatever Snart hit him with. He can feel his body moving slower than normal, and it sets his teeth on edge. 

Barry really feels it when Snart starts firing on civilians. It’s a near miss every time, and the exhaustion of fighting through the pain is starting to wear him down, too. Barry sees Snart aim for the security guard, see him pull the trigger, and he starts running, running as fast as he can as the beam of pure cold shoots from the end of the gun. 

But he’s too slow. 

“No!” 

Barry’s scream echoes through the empty theater, the impeccable acoustics carrying the anguished sound. He falls to his knees in front of the body, dead, frozen solid, and his face pulls up in agony. 

“No,” Barry says again, this time softer, as his heart sinks to his feet and his stomach rises into his throat. His soulmate did this. His soulmate, a cold-blooded murderer. He killed someone. And for what? To get to Barry? To test his speed?  

Barry can’t process any of what’s happened. Instead, he cries.

 

* * *

 

 

“Snart wasn’t another metahuman,” Barry says. He pushes past Iris and Caitlin as they fuss over him, going instead for his cardigan draped on the back of a nearby chair. “He had some kind of gun. It froze things, slowed me down. Enough that I wasn’t in time to save someone.” 

Felicity frowns. “According to his record, Snart didn’t even bother to finish high school,” she says, and still, even after everything that’s happened, something about the statement tugs at Barry’s heartstrings in a way he wishes it didn’t. “So how did he build a handheld high tech snow machine?” 

When Cisco steps forward, explains how he was the one who built the gun, to stop Barry, then kept it secret from him all this time, Barry feels hit by a fresh wave of betrayal. He isn’t even sure it’s Cisco’s fault, exactly. Barry understands why he did what did. But the revelation comes so fresh on the heels of learning that this soulmate - one of his soulmates, and isn’t that a strange sort of situation all on its own - is a heartless killer. It makes hit hard for Barry to stay objective. 

Barry spends the next hour running himself ragged on the treadmill, trying so hard to go faster but never quite getting there. It’s Iris’ voice, firm and insistent, that pulls him from his thoughts at last. 

“Barry,” she yells again over the noise of the treadmill, and, winding his speed down gradually, he finally stops. 

“Sorry,” Barry pants, stepping down to join her on the floor. 

“Don’t apologize to me,” Iris says. “This has been a rough night for you. Talk to me.” 

“I just,” Barry beings, cutting himself off with a brisk shake of his head. “Every time I close my eyes, I see his face,” he tries again. “I wasn’t fast enough to save him. I watched him die.” 

“You tried,” Iris says softly. “That’s all you can do, Barry. You’re being too hard on yourself.” 

But Barry isn’t convinced. He shakes his head and takes a seat on the edge of the treadmill. Iris joins him, her side warm and firm pressed against his own. It’s comforting, familiar, and it only makes him feel worse. 

“I know there’s something else going on,” Iris says after a minute. “Something you’re not telling me. You’ve been acting weird since this morning, before Felicity got here even.” 

Barry shrugs noncommittally. Iris sighs. “You know you can tell me anything, right?” she adds, and her kind, quiet reassurance is what finally breaks him down. Barry sobs, ugly and loud into his hands, and Iris immediately wraps an arm around his shoulders, rubbing his arm. 

“I’m sorry, Iris,” Barry blubbers. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t want it to happen, it just did. And I can’t take it back, but I want to. I want to take it back.” 

“Barry,” Iris says, tears prickling at her own eyes seeing her fiancé so upset. “Barry, it’s okay. Just tell me what’s wrong and we can work through it together.” 

Frantically, Barry shakes his head. “He’s my soulmate, Iris,” he confesses anyway, and Iris tries her best, but she can’t keep herself from bristling at the words. 

“What?” she croaks, tongue gone dry in her mouth. 

“It happened this morning,” Barry continues. “When I went to stop the Kahndaq diamond from being stolen. Snart’s mask came off and I looked at him and then it was like,  _ poof _ , I could see everything, and it was all so bright and clear and, Iris, he’s my blue.” 

Iris draws in a ragged breath. “Do you think he’s my--”

“No,” Barry snaps, but he quickly deflates. “I don’t know. I don’t want him to be. I don’t want him to be for either of us. He’s a murderer, Iris. He killed that man just to prove to me that I couldn’t stop him. That - that can’t be it for us, the piece that’s missing. It’s gotta be someone else. Anyone else. Anyone else.” 

He says it again,  _ anyone else _ , over and over, sobbing into Iris’ shoulder as she holds him close, her own tears dropping onto the crown of his head. 

“It’s okay, Barry,” she soothes. “We’ll be okay.”

 

* * *

 

 

“I didn’t see you before.” 

The way the words roll off Snart’s tongue makes Barry shiver, though he tries his best to ignore it. “Though I suppose I must thank you for your little parting gift. Red’s a good colour on you, Scarlet.” 

Barry chuckles, despite himself. He doesn’t want to find Snart’s banter funny, nor does he want to play into it, and yet, it’s what ends up happening. “If you wanted to get away, you should’ve taken something faster than a train,” he quips right back. 

“That’s if I wanted to get away,” Snart replies. 

For one fleeting, traitorous moment, Barry’s body betrays him. Butterflies well up in his stomach as he considers what Snart might mean by that, if it mean he wants Barry to catch him, to be with him. But then Snart speaks again, and all Barry’s hopes of a happily ever after are promptly quashed.

“I’ve seen your weakness,” Snart continues. “At the armoured car, then at the theatre. See, while you’re busy saving everybody, I’ll be saving myself.” 

And then the Cold Gun whirrs to life, blasting a hole through the floor and freezing the train’s wheels. Barry watches, furious, as Snart opens the doors and prepares to leap from the cabin. Barry wants to go after him, to give chase, but before he can, the train car starts veering off the track and reminds him of the more pressing matter at hand. 

“Good luck with that,” Snart calls as he makes the jump, and Barry isn’t sure if it’s his ears playing tricks on him, or if Snart is being genuinely sincere. 

Barry gets all the passengers safely from the train as the wreck begins in full force. It’s physically exhausting, pushing his speed in ways he’s still not used to, and when he pulls the last woman from the car, the collapses onto the ground in a heap, panting hard. 

Before he can catch his breath, a shot of cold hits Barry in the side. The pain is so excruciating he nearly blacks out. As it is, he screams violently and clutches at the wound, flipping onto his back to watch as Snart descends upon him. 

“Pretty fast, Kid,” Snart says. “But not fast enough.” 

Barry feels like crying, feels like screaming, because his torso is numb and his legs are burning and there’s no way he’s getting away from this. His own soulmate is going to kill him. But then Snart lowers the gun and smirks.

“Thank you,” Snart says, and Barry’s brow furrows deep in confusion. 

“For what?” he asks. 

“You forced me to up my game,” Snart replies. “Not only with this gun, but with how I think about the job. It’s been educational.” 

And then he’s gone, turning and disappearing into the night as Barry struggles to regain his breath. Cisco and Caitlin scream into his ears from the comms. He can hear Iris and Felicity too, in the background, and suddenly, he’s very glad Iris talked him into keeping them on. The support and concern of his team dulls the sting of Snart’s gun, and it’s enough to get him back on his feet and back to S.T.A.R. Labs. 

He doesn’t tell Cisco or Caitlin about Snart being his soulmate. He doesn’t dare. Despite himself, though, he does confide in Felicity. He expects judgment from her, or at the very least for her to be weirded out, but she’s neither. Instead, she sits with him, on the ledge of the treadmill just as Iris had, and offers him some advice. 

“You know,” she says. “My soulmate is technically a murderer too.” 

Barry frowns, but she presses on. “In fact, if you wanna get technical about it, I think Oliver might qualify as a serial killer.” 

Felicity chuckles at that, but it sounds more forced and for the sake of her own sanity than anything else. “I have to figure out how to be okay with that,” she continues. “Or if I even can be okay with that. Because Oliver, he flirts with a lot of people’s definitions of what a bad person is. And he has blood on his hands. But something in the universe thinks I’m supposed to love him, supposed to be the one to stand by him and help him grow. And I still haven’t decided, mind you, if I think the universe is full of shit or not. But I do know it’s something I wanna make an informed decision about.” 

“What are you telling me, Felicity?” Barry asks. 

Felicity shrugs. “I honestly don’t know,” she replies. “I’ll let you know when I figure it out myself.”

 

* * *

 

 

With Snart seemingly gone from the face of the Earth, it’s easy for Barry and Iris to put the matter of him being Barry’s supposed soulmate aside. Or at least, it’s easy to say they have. It’s harder in practice, with Barry seeing in full colour things Iris can only see in reds and yellows and oranges. 

It’s hard to keep the truth from everyone around him, too. Keep up the ruse that he can’t see blue and all its affiliated colours. There are so many times he almost slips, he’s sure his team knows - sure Joe knows - he’s hiding something, but thankfully, none of them press the issue. 

Which is why, when Snart shows up again a few months later, Barry avoids him outright. And he knows that yes, on the one hand, The Flash ignoring crime is a bad thing. But, on the other hand, Snart isn’t a metahuman, and his new partner doesn’t seem to be one either, so it’s really not a matter for The Flash at all. This is something the CCPD can handle on their own. 

The plan, unfortunately, backfires when Snart and his accomplice, Rory, kidnap Caitlin to finally get his attention. Barry’s stomach turns to lead in his gut as he’s reminded once again of all the terrible things his soulmate is capable of. 

He couldn't handle any of this without Iris, Barry thinks. Not without her calming presence and her constant support. She knows how much it tears him up that one of his soulmates is a criminal, that he’s even got a soulmate other than Iris in the first place. Iris feels it, too, that worry in the pit of her stomach, that Snart is blue for her as well, that she’ll be bound to him in some way for the rest of her life, just as Barry is. It’s a selfish thought and she tries to dismiss it, but it’s something she can’t quite shake. 

When Snart and Rory call him out, it’s officially as Captain Cold and Heat Wave, nicknames given to them by Cisco and used frequently on Iris’ blog. It’s something she started when Barry told her he was The Flash, as a way to misdirect the public, to protect Barry’s identity, but the more she works on it, the more popularity it gains, the more she’s started slipping in nuggets of truth. She blames the investigator in her, always deep down believing there’s honour in honesty.   

Which only makes denying the connection Barry share with Snart all the more unsettling.

 

* * *

 

 

Snart’s voice booms over the noise of bustling cops and police sirens. “The Scarlet Speedster,” he calls, and while Barry knows it’s a fairly common nickname, it still feels like a jab, like Snart’s reminding him of the bond they share. Snart’s own parka is blue, visible even under the dark cover of night, and that feels like a taunt, too. 

“Which would you care to take on first?” Snart continues, a swagger in his step that shouldn’t excite Barry but still somehow does. “The flame,” he adds. “Or the frost?” 

Barry doesn’t say anything, can’t say anything, and Snart scoffs. “Not in the mood for chit chat. Gotcha.” 

From there, the guns, Heat and Cold, start firing, and Barry fumbles to outrun them. His and Cisco’s plan to get Snart and Rory to cross streams sounded easy in theory when they discussed it in the lab, but proves to be much harder in practice. 

“Why are you doing this, Snart?” Barry growls as a shot from the Cold Gun buckles his knees, sends him crashing to the ground. “This isn’t how it should be.” 

“What’s he talking about, Lenny?” Rory asks, though his voice sounds hollow to Barry’s ears through the pain. 

“Forget it, Mick,” Snart orders, and the other man thankfully does. They advance on him, guns raised, and again, there’s a fleeting moment where Barry’s sure his soulmate is going to kill him. He doesn’t expect Joe’s partner to swoop in and save him. He’s barely said two words to Detective Thawne as Barry, and certainly never as The Flash. Still, Thawne rescues him, and the save gives him enough time to get back on his feet and get his head back in the game. 

When Snart and Rory finally cross streams, it’s with great pain on Barry’s part, fire and ice burning him on each side. Still, he grits his teeth and stays in place long enough so that, when he zips away, the two men are firing at one another. With a final concussive blast, Snart and Rory are thrown into the air and onto the pavement hard, guns clattering out of reach. 

Snart scrambles to retrieve the Cold Gun, but he gets there too slow. Barry’s got his foot on the gun, and he looks down at Snart with wet, disappointed eyes. 

Snart, the wildcard that he is, begins to chuckle. “Didn’t see that coming,” he says from behind gritted teeth. “I guess you win this time.” 

Barry’s throat feel tight, constricted. “There won’t be a next time,” he replies. His voice is firm but Barry can hear his sadness, too. Snart flinches at this, and Barry wonders why, if it’s because he cares, and if he does, why Snart keeps trying to kill him. 

He wants to press the matter, but Thawne arrives at his side, gun drawn, and the two men’s potential heart-to-heart ends abruptly there. 

“Thank you, Detective,” Barry says, vibrating his vocal cords to conceal the true sound of his voice. He knows Thawne is sharp enough to put two and two together if he doesn’t, even if they’ve rarely ever spoken. 

And then Barry’s gone, racing back to S.T.A.R. Labs, the praise of his team, and sad, sympathetic eyes from Iris.

 

* * *

 

 

Barry sees the exact moment Joe puts the pieces together. 

“Your partner’s a real hothead,” Joe goads Snart, and Snart rolls his eyes, slow and unhurried, in response. 

“That’s funny,” he deadpans. 

Joe scowls. “You know what’s hilarious, Snart?” he says. “We got you.” 

“Congratulations,” Snart replies. 

“You should’ve known,” Joe presses on, getting cocky. “The second you saw that streak of yellow lightning coming for you, it was over.” 

Snart smirks. “See now, Detective,” he drawls. “That’s how lawsuits happen. Assuming I’ve got all my colours, what, because I’m old?”

Joe stiffens, Snart’s idle threat knocking him off balance. “Yellow hasn’t exactly fallen into place for me,” he adds. “Yet.” 

And that’s when Joe knows. Barry sees the gears in turning in his head, sees him glance discretely at Barry as Barry fidgets nervously and tries to avert his eyes, from Joe, from Snart, from anyone. Joe knows, and Barry wonders if Snart does, too. If he recognizes the dull hum of his skin for what it is, being close to his soulmate, or if he’s still too sore from the explosion, from hitting the ground so hard, to notice. 

The officers escorting Snart lead him away, and immediately, Joe grabs Barry by the arm. He pulls him into the privacy of Barry’s lab and then stares him down with hard, angry eyes. 

“Snart,” Joe says deliberately, a tremor of raw fury hammering the name home. “Is blue?” 

He says it like a question, but Barry knows he doesn’t need an answer. “Joe,” Barry stammer. “I’m sorry. I didn’t pick this.” 

“How long?” Joe roars, cutting Barry’s apology short. He doesn’t have to finish the question. Barry knows what he’s asking. 

“Since the Kahndaq diamond,” he replies, swallowing thick. “The armoured car.” 

Joe lets out a righteous, angry breath. “Does Iris-”

“Yes, of course,” Barry cuts in quickly. “I told her as soon as I could. I wouldn’t lie to her, Joe.” 

Joe’s nostrils flare even wider and his upper lip curls. Barry’s never seen him so angry and disgusted all at once. “So you broke my baby girl’s heart?” he asks. 

Barry’s mouth falls open in surprise. His brow furrows and he takes a sudden breath in, lost for words. “What?” he says. “No. We talked about it. She understands.” 

“She understands?” Joe repeats. “Or she says she understands?” 

Barry shakes his head. He doesn’t know what to say. 

“Who else knows?” Joe asks. 

Barry shrugs. “Nobody,” he lies, putting Felicity as far out of his mind as he can. “Just Snart.” 

“Snart knows about Iris?” Joe snaps. 

“I-I don’t thinks so,” Barry replies. “Just that there must be someone else.” 

Joe sighs heavy and shakes his head, turning his back on Barry to pace instead. 

“Or maybe he doesn’t know,” Barry adds. “I mean, we didn’t. We didn’t even think…”

He can’t finish the sentence, can’t articulate the thought.  _ We didn’t even think we could have more than one soulmate _ . 

“I can’t do this right now,” Joe says. He stalks out of the lab as Barry calls after him, but there’s nothing he can say, no amount of pleading, to get Joe to turn around, to change his mind, to be okay with this, and Barry knows it.

 

* * *

 

 

It’s months later and Joe and Barry - and subsequently Iris - still aren’t on speaking terms. 

Barry’s just reset the timeline, an accident but seemingly a happy one, having averted a tsunami that would have otherwise levelled the city. He’s at a bar with Cisco, nursing Cisco’s pride after an entire afternoon of being constantly reminded he’s the black sheep of his family. He’s been venting for nearly fifteen minutes, but Barry doesn’t mind, doesn’t zone out of the conversation once. He wants to listen, to do something to comfort his friend, but he’s at a loss as to what that might be. 

“Son of a bitch misgendered me, too,” Cisco grumbles, glaring down into his beer. “ _ Mija _ .” He spits the word out with vitriol, like it’s acid. “Why does he still do that? I mean, even my parents have been over it for years. Or as over it as they’re likely gonna get.” 

Barry frown. He sets a reassuring hand on Cisco’s shoulder and squeezes tight. “I don’t know, man,” he says. “I’m sorry.” 

Cisco chuckles. “It’s not your fault, Bar,” he replies. “Sometimes you just have a bad day.”

Before Barry can say anything else, the pair are interrupting by the sound of heels clicking against the floor and a woman’s soft, honey-smooth voice. 

“Hi, I don’t normally,” she begins but promptly trails off the second her eyes meet Cisco’s. Barry hears them both draw in a ragged breath as the woman - tall, blonde, gorgeous - continues to try and spit her sentence out. “Do... this,” she adds, but that’s where she gives up in favour of staring at Cisco mutely instead. 

Barry’s eyebrows jump into his hairline as he looks between them both. “Are you two?” he asks, gesturing from one speechless party to the other. 

“Soulmates,” Cisco confirms, his voice barely a whisper, still staring the woman down, unable to look away. “So that’s pink,” he adds absently, eyes jumping between her cheeks and her mouth, luscious and wide, soft lips parted in surprise. 

“I’m gonna go,” Barry stammers, sliding off the bar stool, awkward, as he does. He turns to Cisco and beams, clapping him on the shoulder once more. “Congratulations, man,” he says before making as quick and exit as possible, leaving the two soulmates alone. 

 

* * *

 

“Snart’s back.”

Barry almost flinches, nearly drops his phone, when he hears Joe say the other man’s name. It’s become something of a taboo between them, like saying the name Voldemort, and he honestly hadn’t expected Joe to be the one to break the unspoken rule. 

“Cold is back?” Barry repeats, throat dry, because unlike Joe, he can’t bring himself to say it.  

“Yeah, he was spotted at the Santini crime family casino,” Joe elaborates. “If he’s hitting the Santinis, we could be looking at the beginning of a mob war.” The judgment is thick in Joe’s voice, an unspoken undercurrent of  _ this is the kind of man your soulmate is _ , like Barry picked him, like it was his choice.  

Barry doesn’t know what to say. Instead, he hangs up.

 

* * *

 

 

“How many times are we gonna go through this, Snart?” Barry snaps as he flashes into the casino amidst the gunfire. The bullets he’s expecting. The Cold Gun and the - is that gold? - gun, not so much. 

“Until the best man wins,” Snart snaps back. Barry hears his gun whirring to life and does the only thing he can think of, takes Snart’s accomplice - not Rory but a woman this time - hostage in his arms as a bargaining chip. 

“Drop the gun,” Barry snarls, holding the woman’s own gun to her throat. Snart holds his hands up in defeat. The reaction is immediate and not at all what Barry was expecting. 

“We both know you’re not going to do anything to her,” Snart says, and he’s right, of course, but Barry’s still irked the other man knows how to read him so well. “Oh, by the way,” Snart adds. “Meet my baby sister. Lisa, Flash. Flash, Lisa.” 

As Barry finally glances down at the woman in his grip, sees her properly for the first time, a pit of dread settles in his stomach. He knows her face, recognizes her from the bar, and fear sets in deep as Snart stalks forward, a cocky swagger in his step. 

“Cisco’s been very, very busy,” Snart continues. “Unless you want me to mail small, frozen pieces of him back to his family, I’d take your hands off her.” 

Barry wants to scream. Wants to yell at Snart, at his sister. She and Cisco are soulmates. How could she do this to him? But he knows that would give him away, that she’d know he was the friend from the bar, so he doesn’t. 

“Let him go, Snart,” Barry says instead as he takes his hands from around Lisa’s chest, letting her join her brother at his side. 

“I’ll think about it,” Snart replies. He stalks away, turns his back to Barry outright, which boils Barry’s blood, even more than the condescending kiss Lisa blows him as she follows Snart out the casino doors.

 

* * *

 

 

Joe storms up to Barry at the crime scene, and Barry feels his insides liquefy under the weight of his glare. 

“Witnesses say you had Snart dead to rights, but you let him go,” Joe snarls, keeping his voice low to avoid attracting any unwanted attention. Probably for the best, as the anger radiating off him in waves is enough to catch people’s notice as it its. “That man is a murderer, Barry, and if you’re out here letting him off on some kind of bias, I swear to God.” 

“It’s not bias,” Barry snaps, a little louder than intended, but he cuts himself some slack for it. His nerves are wound so tight, it’s a miracle he’s not vibrating out of his skin. “Snart and his sister, they have Cisco.” 

Joe’s shakes his head, looks at Barry like he doesn’t even know him. “I hope you’re proud of yourself,” he says. 

“Joe, I didn’t chose-” Barry starts, but he cuts himself off with a bitter scoff. There are only so many times he can tell Joe being Snart’s soulmate wasn’t anything he wanted, only so many ways it can be said. If he hasn’t gotten through to Joe yet, he wonders if he ever will, and in any case, it won’t be today. 

“Get back to S.T.A.R. Labs,” Joe says. His voice is hard and final.

 

* * *

 

 

“I told him you were The Flash. Honestly, man, they - they could have killed me. But they were gonna kill my brother. I couldn't let them do that.”

Cisco’s eyes are narrowed into slits as he fights back the tears that well up there, and Barry’s heart breaks as he listens to his friend share the horrific details of his capture. He feels sick, too, sick with guilt, that this all happened because of him. Because Snart is his nemesis. And his soulmate. 

“I’m sorry, Barry,” Cisco blubbers. His voice is filled with so much regret, and he can’t stand to look Barry in the eyes, but Barry approaches him anyway, lays a gentle hand on his shoulder. 

“No,” Barry says firmly, but Cisco still apologizes again. 

“I put you in that position,” Barry continues, as though Cisco hasn’t spoken. He pulls Cisco into a hug and fights against the lump in his own throat. “I’m the one who’s sorry,” he says. His voice is tight and strangled. He knows Wells, and Cisco, and Caitlin can hear the tears he feels falling down his cheeks. 

Cisco clings to Barry tighter, shakes his head. “It’s not your fault,” he says, but Barry can’t pretend anymore. He steps out of Cisco’s arms and curls in on himself, bent first at the middle, then at the knees, like he’s in so much pain he can’t physically keep himself upright anymore. 

“Yes, it is,” Barry sobs. “It is, because Snart, he’s- he’s my soulmate. Cisco, I’m sorry. He’s my soulmate.”

He says it over and over,  _ I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry _ , rocking on the balls of his feet as his arms curl over his head, until finally he falls back, ass to the floor, the mantra exchanged for straight tears. 

“What?” Cisco asks. His voice sounds hollow and Barry cries harder. 

“I thought Iris was your soulmate,” Caitlin says. 

“She is,” Barry replies, his voice broken and jumpy as he tries to regain his breath. “She’s one of them, or part of one, I don’t know. When we met, I finally saw yellow, you know, which I’d never seen before. But I still never had blue. Not until Snart.” 

Barry’s babbling explanation cuts off with another sob. “I’m sorry, you guys. I’m really, really sorry. Cisco, I’m sorry.” 

Barry buries his head in his arms again and doesn’t expect the warm hand that falls onto his shoulder. He jumps as he glances over, and there’s Cisco, face soft and understanding. 

“Don’t apologize, Barry,” he says. “It isn’t your fault.” 

Barry sobs harder, hides his face in the bend of Cisco’s neck. “Yes, it is,” he insists. 

“No,” Cisco says again. “It’s really not. I mean, it’s not like my soulmate wasn’t right there holding me hostage, too.” 

Cisco’s words prompt a wet chuckle from Barry, and a frantic squeak from Caitlin. “What?” she exclaims, voice shrill and grating. 

Cisco sighs. The movement of his body is a comfort as it jostles Barry’s own. “Yeah,” he says. “Apparently, Lisa Snart is my soulmate. Barry and I make quite the pair.” 

Caitlin says nothing, and neither does Wells so Barry looks up at them desperately through tear-filled eyes. “Are you mad at me?” he asks, and that’s what shifts Caitlin’s expression from outright surprise to soft compassion. 

“Of course we’re not mad at you, Barry,” she says. She bends awkwardly at the knee in her tight pencil skirt to sits on his other side, mirroring Cisco as she leans against him. “You don’t pick your soulmate. Or soulmates in this case, I guess.” 

Barry sobs again. This time it’s in relief. “Dr. Wells?” he prompts when he realizes Wells has yet to speak. 

Wells sighs. He takes off his glasses to clean them with his shirt, like he’s trying to gather his thoughts, to say the exact right thing. Finally, he returns his glasses to his face and sighs again. “No, Barry,” he affirms. “People indeed do not pick their soulmates.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Hey, there you are,” Iris says as she rushes into the Cortex, heels clacking hard against the floor. She wraps Barry up in a hug the second she sees him and he feels instantly better, melting into her arms, the familiar hum of her proximity against his skin. “Dad told me about Cisco. I’ve been trying to get in touch with you all day.” 

“I’m sorry,” Barry apologizes. “I had some things I needed to work out.” 

“He told us,” Caitlin supplies, clearing her throat and taking a hesitant step forward. “About Snart and your… situation.” 

Iris tenses. “And?” she asks, cautious, unsure. 

“And it’s all square,” Cisco replies. 

Iris breathes a sigh of relief. She steps forward and wraps Cisco in a deep, long hug. “I’m glad you’re okay,” she whispers into his ear. 

Cisco nods. “In this line of work, I’m sure I’ll have worse,” he says. 

They work together from there to suss out Snart’s plan, which doesn’t take long, in the end. The second they piece together the casino’s protocol to move their cash when under attack, it all falls into place. 

“Go get him,” Iris says once the team’s charted out the route the armoured car will take. 

Barry fidgets nervously on his feet. “And what do I do then?” he asks. 

His eyes scan the room, but they settle on Cisco. There’s something like steely determination set in the other man’s stare. 

“Whatever you have to,” Cisco replies. Except it doesn’t sound like a threat. It sounds more like permission.

 

* * *

 

 

“Good to see you, Barry.” 

His name on Snart’s lips sends a shiver down his spine, only adding to the tingle in his skin. Snart throws his bike helmet away and Barry gives in, pulling his cowl away from his face. The second Snart sees him unmasked, he smirks. 

“I thought I felt something that night at the precinct,” Snart drawls. “I thought it might have been a cop. Wasn’t expecting a CSI.”

Barry bites his lip, trying to keep a level head. “We need to talk,” he says. 

Snart huffs a laugh, but Barry presses on. “I know Cisco told you who I am.” 

“Can’t really blame the kid for giving you up,” Snart replies. “You or his brother? Come on, I put him in a tight spot.”

“I don’t blame him,” Barry snaps, and Snart chuckles. It makes Barry’s stomach turn, half because of Snart’s flippant disregard for human life and half because he like the way it sounds. 

“I’ve got you in something of a tight spot, too,” Snart adds. “Can’t really stop me now that I know who you are.”

Barry scoffs, derisive. “I could speed you to my own private prison where you’ll never see the light of day,” he says. 

“You could,” Snart agrees, casual and a little teasing. Barry wishes it didn’t make his toes curl in amusement and something else entirely, something more dangerous. “But then I won’t be around to stop my own private uplink that’ll broadcast your identity to the world.” 

And damn it, Snart has him. 

“So,” he continues. “The million dollar question. What to do with me now, Barry Allen?” 

“I won’t let you keep stealing whatever you want whenever you feel like it,” Barry argues, whether Snart has the upper hand or not. “It needs to end.” 

“Can’t do that,” Snart says. “It’s what I do.” 

Barry huffs. “Then find a new line of work.” 

Snart shrugs, and it’s so theatrical, so over the top, Barry has to genuinely tamp down an amused laugh. “Don’t want to,” Snart replies, like a petulant, indignant child.   

“Why’s that?” Barry asks. 

Snart smirks. “The same reason you keep running after guys like me,” he replies. He lets the statement linger long enough that Barry knows he’s imbuing it with a dangerous double meaning, the truth lingering just below the surface, that through all this, they’re still soulmates, going unsaid but still something they’re both very much aware of. 

“The adrenaline,” Snart adds finally. “The thrill of the chase. I love this game.” 

“This isn’t a game,” Barry snaps. 

Snart looks awfully pleased with himself to have found Barry’s buttons. “Isn’t it?” he challenges. 

Barry instantly deflates. “Then go play it somewhere else,” he says, quiet, defeated. “Leave Central City.” 

“Can’t do that either,” Snart replies. “This city is my home, just like it’s yours.”

There’s double meaning in that, too, Barry thinks. He feels vulnerable as he takes a step toward Snart, shoulders dropped. “You can’t just do this for me?” 

“Come on now, Barry,” Snart drawls. “Would you stop being The Flash if I asked?” 

Barry’s eyes fall heavily shut. He knows Snart is right, and he hates him for it. 

“Then no one else dies,” Barry levels. “Please, Snart. If you’re as good as you say you are, you don’t have to kill anyone to get what you want.” 

Hope flutter up in Barry’s chest as Snart tilts his head consideringly. “That’s true,” he says, and Barry can’t help but smile. It feels like a victory, however small. He doesn’t want it to, but it does, and it blows a second wind into Barry’s sails. 

“And if you,” Barry continues. “Or anyone in your, your rogues gallery, goes near any of my friends or family again, I don’t care who you tell my identity to. I don’t care that we’re soulmates.” 

The word feels thick on Barry’s tongue, dense in the air. The forest sounds suddenly so quiet as the word is spoken for the first time between them. Barry takes a moment to stew in it, sees Snart doing the same, then he steels himself again, finishing his threat. 

“I will put you away,” Barry promises. And he means it. Snart must hear it in his voice, too, because he looks at Barry consideringly as he takes a step forward. The heat in his eyes makes Barry shiver. 

“Then I guess your secret’s safe,” Snart says. 

Snart takes another step into Barry’s space, and Barry knows what’s coming before it happens, feels it happening in slow motion, but he doesn’t pull away, doesn’t try to escape. He lets Snart lean in, slow and deliberate, and kiss him. 

Barry remembers what if felt like to kiss Iris for the first time. It was Christmas, they were thirteen years old, and Joe left them alone for the evening to cover a coworker’s shift. Joe was always mindful of how much time they spent alone together, knowing they were soulmates, knowing what that meant for the future of their relationship. They were given The Talk early and often, as uncomfortable as it made them all, but Joe still liked to watch. 

Still, he couldn't keep his eye on them 24/7, and it was during one such night that Barry and Iris snuck their first kiss, after a marathon of cheesy, animated Christmas specials, cuddled up close beneath the same blanket on their ratty old couch, years before Joe eventually bit the bullet and replaced it. 

The kiss was chaste and lacking in finesse, sure, but it was also the best thing Barry had ever experienced. Iris tasted salty and sweet, like hot cocoa and pretzels. Her lips were soft and warm, even if they were too damp and had no clue how to maneuver against his own. Barry didn’t care. He knew from that moment on he wanted to spend the rest of his life kissing her, and holding her hand. Thoughts of sex, those would come later, but that first kiss, it was pure and innocent, filled with hope and promise and young love. 

Kissing Snart is nothing like that. The older man is firm and insistent and inescapable. He plunges his tongue into Barry’s mouth and Barry gives himself over completely, succumbing to Snart’s will. Snart’s fingers curl, near painful, in Barry’s hair and Barry groans, hot and wanton, into his mouth. 

The warmth of Snart’s body pressed against Barry’s front feels good, and the way Snart bites at his bottom lip feels even better. It’s like Barry’s burning, but not in the way Snat’s made him burn before, with pain, icy cold. This time it’s a fire, from deep his belly, that sets every one of his nerves alight. His hands grip at Snart’s waist and drag him closer, like Barry can consume him, absorb every part of him into himself. The fire crawls into his chest and Barry shivers, knows it’s dangerous, even more dangerous than when the fire was only in his gut. 

There’s something else about the way Snart kisses him that Barry doesn’t want to consider too closely, a desperation that’s beyond the physical, that’s something more. So. he pulls away instead, though that first step back comes anything but easy. 

“I don’t suppose you’d give me a ride back to town, would you,” Snart says when they’ve caught their breath again. It’s a statement rather than a question, and again, Barry is struck by how well the other man seems to be able to read him. Barry’s already feeling regret, and shame, crawling hot up the back of his neck, scratching at his throat, his eyes. He doesn’t say anything. Can’t.

Barry pulls up his cowl and flashes quickly away.

 

* * *

 

 

It’s unexpected, but not unwelcomed, when Detective Thawn - Eddie - starts working with Team Flash. So, when Dr. Wells - The Reverse Flash - kidnaps him, it’s all the more jarring. While they try and fail to search for him, an even bigger problem crops up. 

“The accelerator,” Cisco says, brows drawn together in confusion as he stares at the screen flashing the current, beeping alert. “It’s been reactivated.” 

“How is that possible?” Joe asks. He’s back on speaking terms with Barry, however tenuously, mostly because nobody dares to bring Snart up. Ever. “It blew up.” 

“It had to have been rebuilt,” Cisco explains, disbelief colouring his tone. 

Barry’s mouth sets in a hard line. “Wells,” he says. 

“Even if he did rebuild it,” Caitlin interjects. “How did Dr. Wells turn the particle accelerator on?”

And suddenly, the truth crystallizes in Barry’s mind as all the moving cogs slot into place. “He’s here,” Barry says. “That’s why we couldn’t find him. He’s been inside S.T.A.R. Labs the whole time.” 

As soon as he says it, the others know he’s right.

 

* * *

 

 

The Reverse Flash gets away in the end, but they find Eddie, a small victory. Barry hates that he’s gotten so good at savouring those. Lately, it feels like they’re the only ones he gets, and even that is undercut when they realize what Eobard Thawne has planned for the particle accelerator. 

“So what happens if the particle accelerator turns on while the metahumans are in their containment cells?” Caitlin asks. 

Cisco lets out a bitter breath. “They’re toast,” he replies. 

“We put them down there, and now their lives are in danger because of us,” Caitlin extrapolates. 

Joe shakes his head. “Look,” he says. “I think you all know, I’ve never been a fan of this arrangement here. I thought the whole plan was to rehabilitate them and set them free.” 

Caitlin and Cisco wear matching, guilty grimaces. 

“It was,” Caitlin defends. “We’ve been a little busy.”  

“Well,” Cisco adds. “If they stay in there, they die. If we let them go, they destroy the city.” 

There’s only one solution in Barry’s mind. “We’re gonna have to move them,” he says.

The bickering doesn’t end there, the back and forth of morality versus doing what needs to be done, or at the very least, doing the lesser of two evils, one of said evils being leaving a group of people locked in cages to die. 

Barry feels a strange pang of guilt as he realizes he’s not sure which scenario’s his mind’s just described. 

“You don’t think,” Joe says, once Caitlin and Cisco have squirreled away to fulfill their part of the plan. “That if we start bussing supervillains through Downtown, nobody’s gonna notice?”

“Oh, they’ll notice,” Barry says. “That’s where you’ll come in.”

 

* * *

 

 

Barry doesn’t want to be here, at Saints and Sinner, a dingy bar in the rough part of town. He definitely doesn’t want to approach the man he’s considering approaching, but with a CCPD escort officially off the table, he doesn’t see himself as having much of a choice. 

“Well, well, well,” Snart drawls, and a frisson rips its way up Barry’s spine. “If it isn’t the Scarlet Speedster.” 

Barry takes a deep, grounding breath, draws himself up to his full height. “We need to talk,” he says.

Snart smirks. “Do we really?” 

Barry grimaces. “Don’t make this any harder than it needs to be,” he whispers, and Snart seems to take pity on him. 

“You want anything,” he asks as Barry follows him toward a nearby jukebox. “Beer? Food? Pickled eggs here are fantastic.” 

Barry can’t tell if Snart’s being sarcastic. He thinks he might be. Snart selects a song on the machine and soon enough, Foreigner’s  _ Cold as Ice _ begins playing from the speakers. Barry chuckles, amused, despite himself. He glances up at Snart through his lashes and sees the other man smiling, looking almost pleased to have drawn the sound out of him. 

“No, I’m good,” Barry says. “I need your help with a problem.” 

Snart smirks. “Must be pretty desperate to come asking for my assistance,” he says. “But I’ll bite. What do you need?” 

Just hearing those four simple words from Snart makes the hair rise on the back of Barry’s neck. He shivers pleasantly, though he tries to hide it. “Help transporting some people out of the city,” Barry replies. 

As he explains his situation further, an odd look creeps across Snart’s face that Barry can’t quite decipher. “So you want me to what?” he quips. “Freeze the problem? Protect you from them if anything goes wrong?” 

Barry says nothing, which Snart takes to mean yes. 

“First rule of business,” Snart continues. “Always protect yourself.” 

Barry feels his heart sink into his shoes. 

“I’m not gonna help usher your enemies out of town,” Snart says. 

And that, that gets Barry angry. He grabs Snart by the arm and stops him in his tracks as he tries to walk away, to turn his back on Barry, on whatever thing should be binding them together but isn’t. 

“Hey,” Barry says. “They’re not just my enemies. They’re your enemies, too.”

Snart scoffs. “I doubt it,” he replies. 

Barry and Snart stare one another down for a long, charged moment. The ghost of a feeling, the press of the other man’s lips against his own, haunts Barry, but he tries valiantly to shake it off. He doesn’t succeed, but he’s still able to remind himself that now isn’t the time. 

“They will destroy Central City,” Barry says, his voice soft, a plea. 

“Not my problem,” Snart insists. 

“You said you love it here,” Barry presses, getting closer still into Snart’s space. “That this is your home.” 

“I do and it is,” Snart snaps. 

Barry swallows heavy under the weight of Snart’s eyes, draws in a ragged breath. “Well, guess what,” he says. “These people get loose, there won’t be a city to love anymore. You won’t be able to rob anyone if everybody’s dead.” 

And Snart just stares at him, so hot, so electric, that Barry can’t decide what he’s thinking. His eyes travel to Barry’s lips, and he wonders if Snart will kiss him again, out in public, in some dingy bar while Barry’s practically begging for him. Not in the same way, of course, but right now, Barry can hardly make that distinction, and he doubts Snart can either. 

Finally, Snart pulls away. “It’s a compelling argument,” he says, but Barry doesn’t think, in the end, it was his argument that was compelling at all. 

“If I’m gonna help you out,” Snart adds. “I’ll need something in return.” 

Barry watches as long, delicate fingers scribble a note onto a piece of paper Snart’s pulled from his jacket. 

“Like what?” Barry asks, a note of caution in his voice, but resignation, too. 

Snart slides the note across the table and Barry picks it up. He glances down at it nervously, expecting to see some egregious number, or some type of immunity Barry can’t possibly provide. What’s actually written stops Barry’s heart in his chest, and his whole body flushes clammy cold like he’s been drenched in ice water. 

_ Yellow _ . 

“No,” Barry says, firm and unyielding. “This? This is impossible. You can’t have that.” 

“Then I can’t help you,” Snart snaps.  

Barry’s floundering now, knocked off balance by Snart’s unexpected demand. “There has to,” he starts, nearly yelling, before he catches himself, lowers his voice to a more appropriate volume for a clandestine meeting. “Snart, there has to be something you want that I can get.” 

For a moment, silence. Then, Snart leans forward, his elbows against the tabletop, and smirks. “Let me think about it,” he says, and then he’s walking away, his back turned to Barry, and it irks Barry so much that he keeps doing that, keeps writing him off as a potential threat so easily. But then, Barry’s not a threat to Snart really, is he?

 

* * *

 

 

“Are you out of your mind?” Joe bellows. Caitlin and Cisco, bless them, pretend they aren’t listening, or even in the room for that matter. “What do you mean you talked to Leonard Snart? Does Iris know?” 

Barry winces. He texted Iris and told her to stay clear of S.T.A.R. Labs for a while, to tend to Eddie instead, and when she texted back to ask why,  _ Snart  _ was the only answer she needed to not ask any more questions.  

“Yes, she knows,” Barry says. “And I asked Snart for help.”

Joe’s eyes go wide with disbelief he isn’t even trying to conceal. “Barry, why would you do something so stupid?” 

“Because, Joe,” Barry snaps. “We have already tried everyone else. You tried the CCPD. I tried Oliver. I even tried Ronnie and Dr. Stein. And the particle accelerator goes online in-” 

“Sixteen hours,” Cisco supplies. 

“Sixteen hours, Joe,” Barry repeats, as though Joe has somehow not heard. 

“Joe scoffs and rolls his eyes. “You honestly expect me to believe this has nothing to do with,” he trails off, can’t even say it. He says instead, “who he is to you.” 

“How could you even say that?” Barry asks, eyes wide and filled with hurt. “I’m not willing to let the metas die. And we can’t let them escape either. So, like it or not, Snart, with his Cold Gun, is the only one that can stop them if Cisco’s transportation doesn’t hold.”

Joe looks placated, if only momentarily. It doesn’t hold long, though, as a voice from the mouth of the Cortex causes Joe to wheel in place and draw his gun. 

“Then lucky for you I figured out what it is you can get me.” 

Snart inclines his head in Joe’s general direction with a self-satisfied smirk. “Hello, Detective,” he says. “Nice to see you again.” 

Begrudgingly, Joe puts his gun away, but he grinds his teeth the whole time. 

“Caitlin,” Snart greets, too. “Cisco.”

He stalks farther into the Cortex, about five seconds away from a full blown supervillain monologue, and Barry wants to smile, wants to roll his eyes, but he knows it’s not the kind of reaction anyone other than Snart is likely to appreciate. 

“I thought about your proposal,” Snart continues. “You want my help, this is what I want. My fingerprints, dental records, DNA, criminal records, family tree. Everything there is in this world concerning Leonard Snart, I want it destroyed. All of it. At CCPD, online, everywhere.” 

Joe scoffs and shakes his head. “The brass on this dude,” he mutters, then louder, he says, “you really think we’d do that for you?” 

Barry, apparently, has other ideas. “I’ll do it,” he agrees. Joe glares, but his resolve holds. “If it’s the only way, fine.” 

Instantly, Joe grabs Barry by the arm and hauls him off. “You and me need to talk, right now.” 

The second Joe gets him alone in one of the testing labs, the yelling starts. “What is wrong with you?” Joe snaps. “You can’t just erase Snart’s criminal records.” 

“Yeah, I can,” Barry argues. “And I’ll do whatever I have to do.” 

Joe shakes his head. “You’re being damn selfish, you know that?” 

“Selfish?” Barry yells, beyond indignant. “How is trying to save people’s lives being selfish?” 

“Because you’re doing it with Snart,” Joe yells back. “Because you just can’t stay away from him. You think he’s some hot shit just because he gave you a colour?”

Barry’s hands ball into fists. “No, Joe,” he says. “I don’t think Snart is  _ some hot shit _ . I think he’s the only chance we have of getting those metas out of the Pipeline alive. And that is all I am thinking about. I don’t care that Snart is my soulmate. He could be my worst enemy, and it wouldn’t matter. We need him.” 

Barry expects Joe to volley back another argument, but instead he deflates, like all the wind’s left his sails. Barry’s blood freezes in his veins as he plays the conversation back in his head, wondering if he’s said something he wasn’t supposed to. Joe’s got a look on his face like he’s just tried to pardon Hitler, and it’s like nothing he’s ever seen before, not even in all of Joe’s anger since finding out Snart is his soulmate.

“What?” Barry croaks, a pit of dread building in his stomach.

“You don’t think Snart is your enemy, Barry?” Joe asks, quiet and sad. 

Barry realizes now how it sounds. “No, Joe,” he says quickly. “That’s not what I meant.” 

But Joe is already headed for the door, and it doesn’t matter what Barry calls out after him. Barry hides his hands in his face and drops to the ground, defeated. One thing he knows for sure, he never wants Joe to look at him that way again.

 

* * *

 

 

“Iris, I’m about to do something stupid.” 

He should’ve gone straight to the station from S.T.A.R. Labs, moved straight on to deleting Snart’s records like he asked, but Barry can’t do it. He needs to talk to Iris first, needs her guidance and her level head, the way he always has from the time they were five years old. 

As Barry explains to her what Snart asked him to do, what he’s going to do, in exchange for Snart’s help, Iris’ eyes go wide, then soft, then wet with sympathy. 

“I’m sorry, Barry,” she says. Their voices are pitched low, sitting on Eddie’s couch as he sleeps off the hell Eobard put him through in the days he was missing. “I wish I could come up with some other way.” 

“There was a way,” Barry corrects. He doesn’t want to, but he knows he needs to tell her. Iris’ brow wrinkles in confusion and he sighs. “He asked for you first. For yellow.” 

Iris stiffens beside him. “But you told him no,” she says, like she needs him to confirm it. 

Barry nods. “I told him no.”  

“I mean,” Iris says after a moment, shifting awkwardly in her seat. “If he really wants, I could-”

“No,” Barry interrupts, firmly shaking his head. “I don’t want you to have to go through this, too. Besides, now that I’ve offered him this, I don’t think he’d go back.” 

The couple is quiet for a moment. Barry contemplates what it would be like if Iris really did meet Snart, what their interactions would be like. Then, he can’t help but think about his own interactions with Snart, the other man’s mouth hot and demanding against his own in a way that felt, despite everything, so, so right. 

Iris can see Barry’s anguish clear as day on his face, and she rests a hand on his arm to comfort him. “You know I’m not mad about what happened in the woods,” she reminds him, soft and gentle, like she can see the kiss play out in vivid detail in Barry’s head. “He’s your soulmate. I know that means something, something more than just seeing the world in full colour.” 

Barry shivers, unbidden. “Should I really have told you?” he asks. 

“About the kiss?” Iris wonders. 

“About all of it,” Barry corrects. 

Iris considers this for a moment. “I don’t know, Barry. Yes?” he hedges. “I think. I mean, this is such a big part of your life. I wouldn’t want you to have kept me in the dark about it. He’s your blue.” 

“He’s yours, too,” Barry says sadly. Iris frowns. “I wish you could see it sometimes, you know. The way you’re meant to be seeing it. The way I see it. The reason the world has colour is so that we can share it with the people we love.

“I mean,” Barry stammers on. “I know that’s not really why the world has colour. According to science. But it’s still a nice thought, right?” 

Iris smiles. “It’s a beautiful thought,” she agrees. “Now go. Go erase Snart’s files. Go save the metahumans. I’m always going to be here for you, Barry. One hundred percent.”

 

* * *

 

 

Barry sets the last box down heavy atop the other. “I’ve deleted everything the CCPD, ARGUS, and the FBI had on you,” he says, glancing over at Snart as he does. “I sent a virus to erase every digital record of you online.” 

Barry looks to the boxes. “And this,” he adds. “Is every single piece of physical evidence the police had.” 

“Good,” Snart says, and then there’s the whirring of a gun powering up, only it’s not Snart’s Cold Gun. A blast of gold coats the boxes, destroying them, and Barry startles. He looks over to a shadowed doorway just in time to see Lisa step out, Gold Gun in hand and looking amazing, and Barry wonders idly if Cisco knew she was coming, if they’re still in touch. 

“I hear we’re all going to be working together,” Lisa lilts, and Barry can’t help but sigh. 

“That’s right, sis,” Len drawls back. He turns his head to glance at Barry with a smug smile, and Barry’s glad the cowl rests over his cheeks enough to conceal the way he blushes in response. “Partners.” 

Which is a sentiment everyone has something to say about, very loudly, when Barry brings Snart and his sister back to S.T.A.R. Labs. Caitlin is the first to break the uncomfortable silence, launching the group squarely into bickering territory. 

“Please tell me this is a joke,” she says, arms cross over her chest. 

“Oh, you were right, Lenny,” Lisa interjects. “She is very uptight.” 

To which Caitlin takes great offence. “I’m not uptight,” she snaps. She turns to Barry for support, but all he does waffle, if apologetically, and Caitlin’s attention turns back to Lisa. “You can’t call me uptight.” 

“Look, guys,” Barry says, cutting through the tension as both sides continue to stare each other down. “We need their help if we’re gonna pull this off.” 

“Why are you wearing your mask?” Caitlin asks, and really, Barry thinks it’s just a clever way for her to ignore him. “Snart already knows who you are.” 

“And I promised I wouldn't tell anyone,” Snart replies. “That includes my sister.” 

Lisa glares at him “Jerk,” she volleys. 

“Trainwreck,” he replies. When Snart catches Joe’s uncertain look, he adds, “don’t look so surprised, Detective. I am a man of my word.” 

Joe scoffs. “Yeah,” he says. “You better be. I’m gonna make sure you’re on that damn plane, too.” 

It’s a direct threat, but Snart must either think it’s empty or inconsequential, because he doesn’t respond.

 

* * *

 

 

“Dampers are fully functional,” Cisco announces as he checks the readings on his tablet. 

“Arlight,” Barry says. “I’ll make sure the roads are clear. Do not stop for anything.” 

He glances over at Snart as he mounts his motorcycle, wishes he didn’t find it sexy, but ultimately accepts the fact that he does. 

“Let’s move out,” Snart hollers over the noise of all three engines running in the garage. He revs his bike and glances playfully back at Barry over his shoulder. “After you,” he adds, and damn it all, Barry can’t help but smile genuinely in reply before flashing away. 

The plan goes flawlessly for a while. So flawlessly, Barry can’t help but imagine doing it again, imagine what his life would be like if Snart was one of the good guys, or at the very least less ostensibly one of the bad guys. If they worked together, fought crime together, had a life together. If Snart could see yellow, and Iris could see blue. 

It isn’t until they arrive at the airfield that things start going well and truly wrong. 

“Your ARGUS friends aren’t very prompt,” Snart drawls. “Maybe that’s why they’ve never been able to catch me.”

Again with things Barry shouldn’t be smiling at. 

“Oh, there it is,” Caitlin points out, just as the sound of a small plane’s engines fills the silence of the night. 

Barry watches the plane come in, watches it get ready to land, and doesn’t think a single bad thought about it all until Cisco comes running from the truck. “Guys,” he shouts. “Guys, we have a problem.” 

Barry’s heart leaps into his throat. 

“The damper’s fluctuating,” Cisco continues, panting heavily from exertion and fear. “The rig’s losing power. I don’t know why.” 

“Wait,” Barry says. “Can you do something?” 

“I’m trying,” Cisco snaps, but it’s too late. His words are nearly lost in a loud clap of thunder. 

“Oh, God,” Caitlin breaths, eyes wide and horrified, as they watch a bolt of lightning pass right beside the incoming plane. 

“Mardon,” Joe supplies, and then it’s really too late. The next bolt of lightning hits the plane in one of its engines and sends it careening into the ground a few hundred feet away, exploding on contact. 

The back of the truck breaks open next, and the group’s attention quickly turns to the larger problem at hand. When the firefight starts, it starts all at once, a cacophony of bullets and lighting and laser eyes. 

Everyone scatters, ducking for cover, and Barry struggles to get his bearings back on the situation. His first concern is Nimbus, possibly the most dangerous of all the metas in his gaseous form. Barry creates a wind tunnel with his arms, forcing Nimbus back to his solid state, but it leaves Barry himself open and exposed, distracted. 

He barely notices Simmons take the shot at him, though he does, just in the nick of time. He dodges the first few lasers as they hurtle his way, but then Mardon throws his hat in the ring, too, and an errant bolt of lightning hits Barry square in the side, knocking him to the ground. 

“Finish him, Simmons,” Mardon yells, and Barry knows he’s done for, that this is how it all ends. He braces himself for impact, but surprisingly, it never comes. Instead, Barry hears the Cold Gun whirr to life, and with one perfectly aimed shot to the face, Simmons falls to the ground, dead. 

“How ‘bout we call tonight a tie,” Snart drawls, and Barry’s never been so glad to hear his voice. His chest swells with pride, knowing Snart’s come to his rescue, has saved him, that them being soulmates must mean something to him after all, too. 

And then that hope is promptly shattered. 

“My name is Leonard Snart,” Snart announces. He sounds smug, satisfied, and that’s Barry’s first hint that all is not as it seems. “Let’s all go our separate ways,” he continues. “And just remember who it was made sure you didn’t get thrown on that plane bound for nowhere.” 

“You’re just letting us go?” Mardon asks. Snart doesn’t respond, so Mardon turns his attention to Simmons’ corpse instead. “Why’d you shoot that guy?” 

Snart shrugs noncommittally. “He owed me money.” 

“What, you want a thank you?” Mardon quips when Snarts says nothing, does nothing more. 

“Who doesn’t like a thank you?” Snart replies. 

There’s a long, pregnant pause. “Thank you,” Bivolo says hesitantly. 

“You,” Snart singsongs. “Are so very welcome.” 

And then Mardon and Bivolo are gone, fleeing into the night, and Snart is stalking over to where Barry still lies, writhing in pain on the damp, dirty asphalt. 

“You sabotaged the truck, didn’t you?” Barry growls out through gritted teeth.

Snart crouches down beside him and slides his goggles down from around his eyes. 

“Why did you let them escape?” Barry presses. 

“Because,” Snart replies. “Now they all owe me. And something tells me they’ll be a lot more use to me as part of my Rogues than rotting away in the North China sea.” 

Barry nearly whines. God, it hurts so much. Not just the lightning strike but this, the betrayal, seeing Snart so nonchalant about it. “You’re my soulmate,” Barry says. 

Snart actually laughs, loud and dismissive, and that cuts deeper than anything, Barry thinks. “I’m a criminal,” Snart corrects. “And a liar. And I hurt people. And I rob them.” 

Every word hits home for Barry like a stab to the gut. He briefly wonders if that’s why Snart’s bothering to spell it out for him at all.

“What did you expect me to do,” Snart continues. “Not be what I am? I saw an opportunity to turn things to my advantage, and I did. Who you’re really mad at is yourself. This is on you, Barry.” 

Barry’s voice is small, hollow, defeated. “Then why didn’t you just kill me?” he asks. 

Snart rises in one graceful movement, considering. “Well,” he says at last. “I guess you owe me one now, too.”

 

* * *

 

 

Joe wants to chew Barry out, tear him a new one, when they get back from the airfield. He tries, but Iris arrives at S.T.A.R. Labs just in time thanks to a quick text from Cisco and gets between her father and her fiané, taking Barry home, back to their apartment, instead. 

“I thought I could build something, with Snart,” Barry croaks, his voice thick with regret, as he listens to Iris rummage around their shared dresser drawers, getting ready for bed. Tears fall, hot and heavy, down his cheeks, onto his neck, where he’s laid up in bed, face burning with shame. 

“Hey, Barry, it’s okay,” Iris says softly, foregoing folding her blouse away in favour of joining Barry on the other side of the bed, curling up beside him and running a hand through his hair. 

“Instead Snart just used me,” he chokes out. Barry’s body’s wracked with a violent sob then, his whole frame shaking. He brings his hand up to cover his face so Iris won’t see him this way, won’t see him crying over a thief and a murderer like he’s even half the person she is. 

Iris doesn’t seem to mind. “Oh, Barry,” she whispers instead, soft and gentle and so, so understanding. “I’m sorry, babe. I’m so, so sorry.” 

She says it over and over, letting Barry cry into her side like it’s second nature. And it might as well be, at this point. Barry wonders how many times they’ll be here, how many times Snart will break his heart and walk all over him, if he’ll ever get the chance to do the same to Iris. Not if Barry has anything to say about it, he thinks. 

Snart’s role in their lives ends here.

 

* * *

 

 

“Don’t apologize. You can bump into me any day, Cisco.” 

Barry nearly drops his mug. His blood turns to ice in his veins. 

“Lisa Snart,” Cisco sighs. He’s exasperated, sure, but he also sounds fond, and Barry finds himself trying valiantly to snorkel in his coffee. “You here to double cross us again, or are you and your big bro holding up coffee shops now?” 

Lisa flutters her lashes. “I need your help,” she says. 

Cisco huffs a laugh. “In your dreams, Sister Cold,” he replies. “You know I could call the Flash, he’d be here in, like, two seconds. Probably one.” 

“Call him,” Lisa says, and Cisco huffs again, not sure what to make of her oddly timed bluff. 

“Okay,” he says, pulling his phone from his pocket. “Imma call him. Mm-hmm.” 

Barry watches anxiously as Cisco keys random emojis into his web browser. When the silence stretches on, Lisa’s expectant eyes watching his thumbs move like a hawk, Cisco freezes. “You actually want me to call The Flash,” he realizes. Barry fidgets even more nervously in his seat. 

“I need his help, too,” Lisa says. “My brother’s been kidnapped.” 

Barry feels suddenly and violently ill. Discretely, under the table, Iris places a hand on Barry’s knee. He knows he shouldn’t care, but were it not for her gentle, grounding touch, he thinks he might actually be sick. 

“Cisco, I think you should go,” Iris says firmly. “To S.T.A.R. Labs. And call The Flash on the way. I’m sure he’ll be there as soon as he can.” 

Lisa seriously considers Iris for the first time. “Isn’t that a little presumptuous of you, sweetie?” she asks. 

Iris shrugs. “The Flash is a good man,” she replies. “Helping people’s what he does.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Alright, so,” Barry says slowly, covered from head to toe by the Flash Suit as he stands with Lisa and the others in S.T.A.R. Labs, processing, thinking out loud. “You really want us to just believe that Captain Cold was kidnapped?” 

“I saw it happen,” Lisa snaps. “Last night, Lenny, me, and Mick were knocking over the cashier’s cage at Central City Race Track.” 

Caitlin’s face pinches up instantly. “Does it physically pain your family not to rob people?” she asks, voice shrill. 

Lisa pays her annoyance no mind. “I never finished the job,” she says instead. “After Mick torched through the side entrance, I looked back for Lenny and saw him getting thrown into the back of a van.” 

Even just hearing the story, as flippantly as Lisa’s recounting it, causes panic to bubble up in Barry’s chest. He wishes Iris was here with him, to comfort him, but he knows it’s for the best that she went back to work. They both want her to stay as far removed from things involving Leonard Snart as possible. 

“And why didn’t you and Mick follow?” Barry asks, rather than let his own fear drive him crazy. 

“I would have,” Lisa sneers, like it physically pains her just to think about leaving her brother alone. “Someone hit me from behind and knocked me out. When I came to, Lenny was gone, and Mick already made off with the cash.” 

“How do we know this isn’t some kind of a trap?” Caitlin asks, the least emotionally investested and thereby naturally the most skeptical. 

Lisa sighs. “If Lenny wanted Flash dead, he would have had Mardon, Simmons, and Bivolo take that honour, remember?” she says. 

“Yeah,” Barry agrees. He tries to keep his tone neutral and mostly thinks he succeeds. “I remember.” 

“Good,” Lisa says. “Then you’ll also remember that you owe Lenny a favour for saving your life. Time to make good on that debt, Flash.”

 

* * *

 

 

Barry speeds into the empty office space, pages blowing up as gusts of wind pick up around him. He’s wary, nervous, if not outright terrified of what he might find the more he looks around, but at first glance, nothing seems out of the ordinary. 

And then Barry sees him, walking between a row a filing cabinets like he doesn’t have a care in the world. He thinks he should feel angry that Lisa’s obviously lied to him, but all he feels instead is relieved. 

“Snart,” Barry whispers, loud enough to get the other man’s attention. 

Snart stops in his tracks and looks Barry’s way. “Barry,” he whispers back, and Barry feels it again at the corners of his mouth, that traitorous impulse to smile. 

“Are you okay?” Barry asks. He doesn’t look hurt, doesn’t look to be under duress. 

Snart shrugs. “Peachy,” he replies. 

“Okay,” Barry says, following after Snart as he continues his trek through the room. “Uh, I’m supposed to be here to rescue you.” 

“That’s not necessary,” Snart replies. “You can speed along now.”

He waves his hand, dismissive, but Barry can’t bring himself to leave, too afraid that something might actually be wrong, despite how innocuous everything about their encounter seems. 

“Look, Snart,” Barry presses. “If these guys are making you do-”

“No one makes me do anything,” Snart interjects. 

Barry huffs. “Then why does your sister think you’ve been kidnapped?” 

Before Snart can answer, Barry’s distracted by a noise at the door. Snart uses his lack of focus in his favour, Cold Gun whirring to life as he ices Barry to the floor. Barry feels it again, the sting of betrayal, and wishes, not for the first time, that Snart didn’t have so much damn power over him. 

“What’s taking so long?” Barry hears the newcomer grumble as he enters the room. For a moment, he doesn’t know what to think. It almost looks like Snart flinches. But that can’t be right, can it?

“I got held up,” Snart replies. 

“Always the excuses with you,” the other man laments. But then he stops in his tracks as he sees Barry - The Flash - iced to the floor. “Well look at that,” he says. “I didn’t think you had it in you, son.” 

Barry’s eyes go wide. He wonders if it’s just a friendly nickname, what an older man might call someone who’s his junior, whether that someone is middle-aged or not. Any uncertainty is dispelled however when Snart drawls back a gentle, “thanks, Dad.”

“Come on,” Snart’s father says, his voice nearly drowned out by Barry’s cries of pain as the ice from the Cold Gun burns his chest, his legs. “We’re behind schedule already.”

“You know what they say?” Snart teases, but there’s an edge of something that’s definitely not supposed to be there in his voice. He shoots Barry a smirk, but that, too, falls flat. “Live fast, die young.” 

When he says it like that, Barry thinks, it makes it sound an awful lot like Snart doesn’t mean it. Not a single word.

 

* * *

 

 

“So, your brother,” Barry begins when he arrives back at S.T.A.R. Labs, conveniently defrosted with the help of a new upgrade Cisco made to the suit. He stares Lisa down, but she doesn’t so much as bat an eyelash. “Was not kidnapped. He was pulling a job. With your father.” 

That. That prompts a reaction. “What?” Lisa gasps, brow furrowing in confusion. “No. Lenny would never do that.” 

“Oh,” Caitlin interjects, hands squared on her hips. “Just like he would never try and kill The Flash with his Cold Gun.” 

Lisa ignores her. “Are you sure it was my dad,” she asks Barry instead. 

Cisco pulls his mugshot up on a nearby monitor, and Barry confirms. “That’s him,” he says.

“Lewis Snart,” Caitlin reads. There’s a smugness in her tone that Barry isn’t sure is right, isn’t so sure she should be using in this situation, but he says nothing about it. “Convicted of larceny, armed robbery, aggravated assault, assault with a deadly weapon.” 

She stops the listing short and glares at Lisa. 

Lisa shakes her head. “You have to believe me,” she insists. “Lenny would never work with him. He’s a bad guy.” 

“You and your entire family,” Caitlin says firmly. “Are criminals. Why should we trust anything you say?” 

Cisco looks inclined to believe her regardless, and quite frankly, Barry is too, the fear that something is really wrong with Snart gnawing at his gut. But that doesn’t appear to be enough for Lisa. Her eyes go hard and she stares Caitlin down, then pulls aside her jacket and shirt from her collar to reveal a long, jagged scar, deep, pale, and angry. 

“I didn’t get this scar being a criminal,” she says, her voice monotone, detached. “I got it being a daughter.”

From the corner of his eye, Barry sees Caitlin blanche, like she’s regretting every one of her poorly chosen words. He sees Cisco, eyes wide and wet, staring at Lisa with such care and concern. But all that come second to the roaring of blood in Barry’s ears, the heavy stone settled in his gut, when he thinks about Leonard being alone with that man. 

Barry nearly jumps out of his skin as he realizes what he’s just done, thought of him as Leonard rather than Snart. But he’s Barry’s soulmate, and it shouldn’t surprise him his thoughts have put them squarely on a first name basis, despite everything they’ve been through. 

Cisco chases after Lisa as she storms out of the Cortex, but Barry can’t move. He’s frozen with fear, and worry, and dread. He’s used to Leonard making him feel this way, not feeling this way about Leonard, and it throws him entirely off balance.

 

* * *

 

 

It doesn’t surprise Barry at all to find Leonard holed up at Saints and Sinner. He almost wonders if he’s there deliberately, waiting for him. 

“Back from the dead so soon, Barry,” Leonard drawls as Barry stalks forward, then slides into the booth across from him and pointedly stares him down. “Pass me the salt,” he adds, and isn’t that an avoidance behaviour if Barry’s ever seen one. 

Still, Barry slides the salt across the table, and holds Leonard’s gaze as he does. 

“Don’t spill,” Barry warns. “It’s bad luck.” 

Leonard slams the shaker down on it’s side, salt rocketing across the table, like he’s trying to prove a point. 

Barry draws in a deep, calming breath. “Why are you working with Lewis?” he finally asks, seeing that small talk is getting him nowhere. 

Leonard says nothing, avoids his eyes, and Barry’s heart aches, seeing a man’s that usually so full of confidence and bravado behave this way. “Lisa told us you hate him.” 

“Things are,” Leonard trails off, like he’s looking for the right word. He still won’t look Barry in the eye when that’s usually all he can do, and Barry finds himself fighting the urge to reach across the table and hold his hand. 

“Complicated,” Leonard settles on finally. “With family,” he adds. “As you know with your own parents.” 

Barry thinks Leonard means it to be cutting, to drive him away, but it only reminds him of how much they have in common, and how much more, still, Barry is glad they don’t. 

“Tell me what’s going on,” Barry pleads, and yes, it’s plea, and he knows it. “Let me help you.” 

Leonard shakes his head. “Don’t waste your time trying to save people who don’t wanna be saved,” he says. 

“Don’t worry about me and time,” Barry replies. “I’ve got plenty.” 

Leonard picks a fry up off his plate, dips it in ketchup, and bites delicately on the tip. “You don’t have to worry,” he says, dismissive. “I remember our deal. You leave me alone, I make sure no one dies.” 

He’s trying so hard to get rid of Barry, and it’s making Barry frustrated, almost manic. He doesn’t see how Leonard doesn’t get that he cares about what happens to him, that they’re soulmates, and whether they’re actively trying to kill each other or not at whatever given moment, Barry never wants to see him hurt. 

“You’re a criminal, Snart,” Barry says, hoping to put his thoughts into words Leonard can understand. “But you live by a code. It sounds to me like Lewis doesn’t, like he won’t care if people die.” 

_ Like he won’t care if you die _ , Barry thinks but doesn’t say. “That’s why I can’t leave this alone.”

For a fleeting second, it looks like Barry’s gotten through to Leonard, but then he’s tossing his napkin onto his plate and sneering at Barry as he moves away from the table. “Then everyone will know who The Flash is under that mask,” he threatens. 

“I don’t care,” Barry says, as earnest as he can manage. Finally, he’s got Leonard’s eyes - his wonderful, amazing, beautiful blue eyes - held captive with his own. 

“You know,” Leonard says softly. His voice has dropped into something low, intimate. It makes Barry shiver. “I don’t even know what colour your eyes are,” he continues, like he can read Barry’s mind, and really, Barry thought only Iris could do that this well. 

Barry clears his throat, suddenly tight and uncomfortable. “They’re green,” he replies. 

Leonard tilts his head. “Pity,” he says. “Seems like I still need yellow for that.” 

Barry stammers, but Leonard doesn’t stick around for a reply. “Thanks for dinner,” he calls over his shoulder, not even bothering to look back.

 

* * *

 

 

Barry’s brow furrows as he stares down at the readings on the small, handheld machine. “Traces of thermite,” he says, relaying his findings to Joe’s new partner. 

“Bomb residue?” Detective Spivot asks, which Barry confirms. Spivot is nice and endearing, a bit of a dork and nervous babbler in a way that reminds him a lot of Felicity or, technically, yes, himself. Barry doesn’t mind working with her. Still, it’s still strange, not having Eddie around. His death haunts Barry, haunts all of Team Flash, but day by day, the ache dulls a little bit more. 

“Why wasn’t the rest of the body blown apart?” she wonders aloud, and Barry can’t help but find it odd as well. 

“The victim is David Rutenberg,” Joe announces as he joins them both, reading from an open dossier. “A security systems expert. And guess who’s on his list of known associates?” 

Barry nods at Joe to fill in the blank, so he does. “Lewis Snart.” 

Barry’s stomach roils again. 

“Lewis Snart,” Spivot jumps in. “Isn’t he related to Leonard Snart, AKA Captain Cold?” 

She sounds so proud of herself for making the connection, but Barry can’t find it in himself to congratulate her on her impressive knowledge of Central City’s criminal element when he’s too busy trying to keep himself from throwing up. 

“Please don’t call him that,” Joe protests, and Barry doesn’t want to confide in him, exactly, know’s he’s not what one would call Leonard’s biggest fan, or even someone who finds him tolerable, really, but he knows if he doesn’t tell someone what’s making him so anxious he’s going to pass out, and Joe’s still one of the most longstanding father figure’s he’s ever known.  

“Joe, can I talk to you for a minute?” he asks. He doesn’t wait to hear his reply, just drags him aside and starts talking. “I think this guy is part of Snart’s crew.”

“So, Snart but a bomb in him to keep him in line.” The fact that Joe doesn’t sound even remotely skeptical hurts more than Barry cares to admit. 

“No,” Barry says. “Snart wouldn’t do that.”

Joe gives him a uncertain look. “You sure you’re not just saying that because-”

“It’s not an us thing,” Barry interrupts. “It’s an  _ I know Snart _ thing. He wouldn't do this. But his father would.” 

Joe scoffs, derisive. “Lewis is killing people, and Snart’s still working with him,” he says. “So much for your deal.” 

And that, for Barry, is the last straw. “Would you stop that?” he snaps, turning to Joe with a venomous glare. “What do you even know about any of this? Maybe he doesn’t have a choice.” 

Joe shakes his head. “Barry,” he reprimands. “Why are you always making excuses for that man?”

“Because he’s my soulmate,” Barry hollers. He doesn’t mean to be so loud about it, but once the ball gets rolling, he can’t get it to stop. “And he is Iris’ soulmate, too.” 

“We don’t know that,” Joe argues.

Barry actually growls. “Yes,” he says. “Yes we do. Stop living in denial, Joe. This is real. The fact that he is our soulmate is real.” 

“Keep your voice down,” Joe snaps, but Barry shakes his head. 

“Doesn’t matter,” he says. “I’m leaving anyway.”

 

* * *

 

 

“You think Lewis put a bomb in Leonard’s head to force him to pull off the heist?” Iris asks, her voice thick with worry. She and Barry are curled up on their couch over her lunch break, eating Chinese takeout from the carton. They’d planned to go out, but with everything going on, they agreed to stay in instead, so they could talk privately. She mentioned nothing when Barry first called Leonard  _ Leonard _ , so Barry says nothing in return when she does the same. 

“Leonard still wouldn’t do it,” Barry says. “He’d dig the bomb out of his own head if he had to.”

Iris frowns. “Well,” she says. “There must be something that he cares about, something Lewis could be leveraging against him.” 

All it takes is Iris saying it for the pieces to fall into place in Barry’s head. “The only thing Leonard cares about is his sister.” 

Quick as a flash, he’s got his phone out of his pocket, and Cisco on speed dial.

 

* * *

 

 

“These visits are getting old,” Leonard drawls. 

Barry hesitates, but only for a moment, before stepping farther into the room. “Third time’s the charm,” he replies.

Leonard springs from his seat, his back still to Barry, Cold Gun whirring to life. “I told you,” he says. He turns on his heels, the gun swinging to face him, but Leonard never aims it. He lowers it instead. “I don’t need saving.” 

“But your sister does,” Barry says. Leonard’s expression stays neutral, everywhere expect for the eyes. “I know your dad put a bomb in Lisa. Lewis told you he’d killer her, if you didn’t help him, right?” 

Still, Leonard says nothing, body drawn tight like a bowstring. “Look,” Barry says. “Don’t worry. My team’s working on a way to remove the bomb.” 

Before Leonard can answer, Lewis enters, authoritative, commanding. “Hope you’ve got that gun of yours ready to blast,” he begins, then stops dead in this tracks when he catches sight of Barry. Barry doesn’t miss the way Leonard tenses, and he can’t say he’s all that relaxed himself. Maybe it’s being in civilian clothes, making him feel exposed.

“Who the hell’s this?” Lewis asks. 

Barry stammers at first, but the thinks he makes a fairly decent recovery, all things considered. “Lenny said you need new tech,” he covers. His heart skips a beat when he calls Leonard  _ Lenny _ , and he flies that information away for later. 

“What’s up?” Barry adds belatedly, extending a hand. “I’m Sam.” 

Lewis doesn’t take Barry’s hand. Instead, he scoffs at him and turns to Leonard. “You telling me you think this kid can crack a Draycon keypad?” 

“I did help him steal the Kahndaq Dynasty diamond from Central City Museum last year,” Barry bluffs. “That was locked up behind an AmerTek Industries phase three suppression door with a Draycon XL-1218 keypad.” 

There’s a tense moment of silence as Lewis scrutinizes Barry, and Barry’s not sure he’s going to be able to hold up his cocky façade, especially not when the very sight of Lewis boils his blood and makes his stomach turn.

Luckily, Leonard comes to his rescue. “Couldn’t have done it without him,” he lies, and despite himself, Barry smiles. 

“Draycon’s my jam,” Barry adds. He knows as soon as he’s said it he’s pushed the bit too far, but Lewis lets it slide anyway. 

“Okay, Sam,” Lewis says, getting right up in Barry’s face. He has to fight tooth and nail to suppress a shudder, but whether it’s from fear, disgust, or anger, Barry honestly doesn’t know. “Let’s go.” 

“Right now?” Barry asks as Lewis stalks away. 

“You got a problem with that?” Lewis asks. 

And Barry’s so out of his depth right now. “No,” he lies. “All good. Can’t wait.” 

Lewis leaves, and Barry quickly turns to Leonard, looking for reassurances. The smug bastard, damn him, is just smiles in reply. And Barry, damn his own self, can’t help but smile back.

 

* * *

 

 

Getting to the diamonds takes so many close calls, Barry swears he has a series of very small but very serious heart attacks by the time they make it to the Draycon keypad. 

It breaks Barry’s heat, to listen to the way Lewis speaks to his son. Leonard gives as good as he gets, sure, but that does nothing to change the face that he shouldn’t have to. The thing that seems to hurt Leonard the most, though, is when Lewis criticizes Lisa, calls her a disappointment. He sees the pain and the anger flare up in equal measure behind Leonard’s eyes, and Barry wishes there was something more he could do than he already is to help. 

“Draycon’s got a colour key lock, too,” Lewis warns as Barry approaches the system. 

Barry swallows thick. “Yeah,” he says. “Don’t worry about it. I’ve got all my colours.” 

Flying through all the possible combinations at super speed, Barry has the door unlocked in no time. He’s actually decently surprised his method even workes without tripping some kind of alarm. That doesn’t seem entirely safe, and maybe he ought to contact someone about that. 

“Told you Draycon was my jam,” Barry announces proudly, owning it now in the face of his victory. He smiles at Leonard as he passes him by, the kind of smile he knows Iris has described as impish and youthful. Butterflies flutter in Barry’s stomach when Leonard smiles back, just as raw and genuine for one brief, ephemeral moment, 

“Nice job, Sam,” Lewis says, pulling Barry back down to reality. “It’s good to go out on a high note,” he adds. Then, Lewis has a gun, and he has it trained on Barry. He pulls the trigger and all Barry can do keep his identity safe is catch the bullet and play dead. 

Barry’s heart stutters in his chest when he hears Leonard’s quiet, “sorry, Barry.” He can’t see his face, but he doesn’t think he wants to, doesn’t want to know either way what expression is there. 

As soon as he’s able, Barry gets Cisco and Caitlin on the phone. “Cisco, how are you doing with Lisa?” he asks. 

“Ah,” Cisco replies, sounding frantic and nervous. “Kind of in the middle of it right now, buddy.” 

“We need that bomb out,” Barry says, which is probably completely unnecessary, but it makes him feel better anyway, more in control, as he flashes into his suit. “The heist is going down right now.” 

Barry’s words are punctuated by the sound of the vault’s alarm as it begins to ring, and finally, he knows it’s safe for him - for Lisa - to go in without arousing suspicion.

“The only place you’re going is back to Iron Heights, Lewis,” he says as he speeds into the vault, stopping Leonard and his father mid-escape. 

“You wanna bet?” Lewis goads. 

Barry scoffs. “Do I wanna bet?” he parrots, at the same time Cisco yells in his ear, “do not bet! Gimme a minute!” 

“Tell me this,” Barry says instead as a distraction. “What kinda man puts a bomb in his own daughter?” 

Lewis, creep that he is, chuckles. “A very rich man,” he replies. Then, he flips open the cap on a tigger and addresses Leonard without so much as turning to look at him. “Shoot him, son,” he says. 

Leonard hesitates. Barry can see the war going on behind his eyes, and he know he’s not Lisa, will never compare to Lisa, soulmates or not, but he still trusts Leonard not to pull the trigger. 

“Kill him,” Lewis says again, this time more commanding. “Or you’ll never see your sister alive.” 

Leonard hesitates. 

“I got the bomb out,” Cisco hollers in his ear, and Barry’s knees practically go weak with relief. 

“Lisa’s safe,” he tells Leonard, and seeing him breathe a deep, staggering breath as the news registers make Barry’s chest clench in a way that’s delightfully painful. 

Leonard lowers the gun, for the briefest moment, and all seems well, but then suddenly he stops. Lewis turns around to face his son, and before Barry can react, Leonard’s fired the Cold Gun directly into Lewis’ chest. Barry takes a harried step back, stunned. 

“You’re working with The Flash?” Lewis asks with his final breath. “I thought you hated him.” 

Leonard’s voice is small, broken, when he replies, “not as much as I hate you.” 

And then Lewis tumbles forward, dead. Leonard kneels down at his side and just stares, like he doesn’t know where to go from here, what to do. He looks so lost. Barry moves forward, slow, deliberate, until he’s close enough to take the Cold Gun from Leonard’s hands. Leonard doesn’t even fight him on it. If anything, he seems surprised to remember that Barry’s there at all. 

“Lisa was safe,” Barry says softly, a gentle whisper against the harshness of the night. “Why did you do that?” 

“He broke my sister’s heart,” Leonard said, angling his head to look up at Barry. His eyes look so helpless, Barry shivers. “Only fair I break his.” 

Barry doesn’t know what to say to that, or what to do. The only thing he knows for sure is that he doesn’t want to leave Leonard alone, rooted to the spot in shock, with his father’s corpse rapidly cooling beside him. 

He considers just whisking Leonard away, he does, he really does, but that doesn’t feel like the right thing to do. The right thing to do, which sounds a lot like Joe’s voice, reminds him that even if Leonard should get a pass on killing his father, all things considered, he’s taken plenty of innocent lives as well that he’s never paid penance for, and with his records destroyed, this might be the only opportunity he has to be tried and convicted. 

That also feels like the wrong thing, but Barry’s honest enough with himself, at least, to know this time, it is because Leonard’s his soulmate. 

He needs to let Leonard get arrested, but that doesn’t mean Barry can stomach the thought of leaving him alone, either, until the cops show up. So, instead, Barry puts the gun down on the ground and puts a warm, strong hand on Leonard’s shoulder. Leonard starts, and he turns to look up at Barry with wide, glassy eyes Barry doesn’t think are registering much at the moment. 

“I know,” Barry says softly, taking a seat at Leonard’s side. He gently maneuvers the older man until he’s sitting, too, until he’s got his head resting in the curve of Barry’s shoulder. Leonard shakes like a leaf in his arms, but he doesn’t cry, and Barry wonders if it’s because he can’t. He look so traumatized, so far removed from anything that’s going on around him. Even to allow Barry to hold him this way shows a distinct lack of awareness on Leonard’s part, and it worries Barry so profoundly, it makes him shake, too. 

“I know,” Barry says again. “I’m sorry. It’s gonna be okay.”

He says it again, over and over, as he runs the gloved pads of his fingers over the top of Leonard’s skull. It’s the same thing that Iris has done for him time after time, and he’s developed a natural rhythm from her. 

Barry wonders if Leonard going to prison mean he and Iris will never meet, that he’ll never see yellow, and she’ll never see blue. Barry wonders if he’s meant to spend his life alone in a way no one ever has before, with two soulmates and a world full of colour, but neither of them to really share it all with. 

Barry stays with Leonard as long as he can. He stays until he can hear the police sirens, then even longer, until it’s the sound of boots hitting the ground in the hallway outside. Finally, when he knows he can’t put if off any longer, Barry flashes away, desperately hoping the incoming authorities treat Leonard with every bit of the care he deserves.

 

* * *

 

 

“I shouldn’t have left him here,” Barry says later that night as he lies next to Iris in bed. She has her head pillowed on his shoulder, but he knows she’s doing it more for his benefit than her own. 

“You did what you thought was right,” Iris replies. 

Barry frowns at her wording. “But you don’t think I did?” he asks. 

Iris sighs. “I don’t know what to think,” she says. “Leonard is a murderer, yes, but he’s also your soulmate. Our soulmate. And it was easy to write him off, back before we really got to know him, or at least you did. But now? I don’t know, Barry. Soulmates exist for a reason. The universe is arbitrary, but not that arbitrary. This feels like it has purpose. I feel like we have purpose. And if we have purpose, maybe Leonard has purpose with us, too.” 

Barry shakes his head. “It’s too late now,” he sighs. “He’s already been taken into custody.” 

It shouldn’t surprise Barry that that’s what makes Iris laugh. “He’s Leonard Snart,” she reminds him with a playful nudge against his side. “How long do you really think that’s gonna stick?”

 

* * *

 

 

“Last time I was in Iron Heights, I was visiting my dad.” 

It feels weird to Barry, speaking into a receiver to have a conversation with a man that’s mere feet away behind a pane of glass when that man he’s trying to have a conversation with isn’t his father. It feels strangely familiar though, too, and Leonard’s breezy chuckle on the other end only serves to make him feel even more at home. 

“Yeah, me too,” Leonard replies, and Barry joins him in his laughter. Still, he sobers soon enough. 

“You didn’t have to kill him,” Barry says. 

Leonard’s nose curls up in anger and contempt. “He deserved it,” he snaps, on the defensive. Barry wishes they could go back to their teasing banter, but also knows that they can’t. 

“You know, Leonard,” Barry beings. He uses the other man’s first name deliberately and watches close to gauge his response. Leonard’s eyes shine, and Barry thinks it’s the nonverbal cue for  _ keep saying my name like that _ . “I figured out your secret. 

Leonard stiffens in his chair. “And what secret would that be?” he asks. 

“You’d do anything to protect your sister,” Barry replies. “All this just proves what I’ve always known.” 

He pauses, and Leonard watches him deliberately, whether like predator or like prey, Barry isn’t really sure. 

“There’s good in you, Leonard,” Barry says finally, when the silence between them can no longer stand. “And you don’t have to admit it to me. But there’s a part of you that knows that you don’t have to let your past define you. Not with yourself, and not with anyone else.”

Barry hopes Leonard understands the offer, even as he scoffs in reply. 

“There’s a part of you,” Barry continues. “That really wants to be more than just a criminal.” 

Leonard draws in a deep, ragged breath. “So I should be a hero, like you, Barry?” he quips, putting up the mask, the walls, the protections. “What exactly does that pay again?” 

Barry sighs. “You don’t have to be so afraid anymore,” he says, soft and gentle. “I know it’s dark where you are right now, but the sun’ll come up for you someday, bright, and beaming, and yellow.”

 

* * *

 

 

The next few months are hell for Iris, and Barry’s right there with her, every step of the way. It comes like a slap in the face, the revelation that her mother didn’t die. Instead, she turns out to be a former drug addict who ran away from rehab after yet another overdose in a long line of overdoses. And she did it all while pregnant with a son, a younger brother, Joe and Iris never knew existed. 

Iris can’t stand to talk to her father for weeks, not after all the hell he put her and Barry through, judging their relationship and the innate connection the have to Leonard. She can’t bear to speak to her mother, either, feeling frustrated and abandoned and angry. 

“Is there anything I can do?” Barry asks as he holds Iris tight against his chest, lights turned off and the pads of his fingers brushing against her scalp as they run through her hair.

“Just what you’re doing,” Iris replies. “Holding me. This is good. And letting me keep putting off the wedding planning until everyone is on speaking terms again.” 

Barry chuckles good-naturedly. “Right,” he says. “Which, going at this rate, means we should be getting married any time within the next ten to twenty years.” 

Iris sighs, finally content, against his chest. “Hey,” she prompts after a moment. “What are we gonna do about Leonard when we get married, anyway?” 

“Well,” Barry muses. “If Joe isn’t actively trying to kill him at the time, or he isn’t trying to actively kill us, I guess we’ll invite him to the wedding.” 

“No,” Iris chuckles. “I mean, what are we going to do, within the parameters of our marriage. I mean, he’s our soulmate. There’s gotta be some kind of special allowance made in a situation like this.” 

“By who?” Barry asks. “The adultery gods? Hate to break it to you Iris, but you don’t actually need special permission to, you know, be with someone, outside your marriage. People have been doing it for about as long as getting married as been a thing.” 

Iris rolls her eyes. “I don’t mean how we’re going to sleep with him,” she corrects. “Though, to be fair, that’s probably something we should discuss at some point, too.” 

A blush rises to Barry’s cheeks, visible even in the dim light of the moon and the street lamps outside, and Iris giggles. “I mean, how are we going to include him. In our home, in our lives.” 

“Hold on a minute,” Barry says. He turns onto his side so he and Iris can be face to face, because this feels like that kind of conversation. “Are you talking about us, what, marrying Leonard?” 

Iris shrugs. “It’s gonna come up,” she reasons. “Especially if we’re not already married by the time he joins us.” 

“You keep saying that,” Barry says. “Like you know for sure he will.” 

Again, Iris shrugs. “Call it a hunch.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Ho, ho, ho.” 

Barry and Iris are hanging up their coats on the hooks by their apartment’s front door when they hear it. Both turn and stare at once at Leonard Snart, recently sprung from Iron Heights along with James Jesse, The Trickster, by none other than Mark Mardon, who still owed Leonard one from Ferris Air, if Barry remembers correctly. 

Leonard look ridiculous, if only because he looks adorable, sitting on their lone armchair, bundled up in his signature parka, a corny ceramic reindeer mug cradled between his palms. Barry’s feet twitch with lightning, urging him to move forward, so spring into action, though what action he’s not sure. Before he can do any of the numerous things which is mind suggests, most of which involve pinning Leonard to the wall, Iris gasps loudly and brings her hand up to cover her mouth. 

“Oh, my God,” she breathes, warm brown eyes stuck on Leonard’s blue one. Blue she’s seeing for the very first time. Leonard looks just as enamoured. It’s more subtle on his part, but Barry know by now how to read him. 

“Cocoa isn’t cocoa without the mini-marshmallows,” Leonard chokes out after a long, heavy silence. “And you’re out. I checked.” 

“What are you doing here, Leonard?” Barry asks, his tongue heavy and dry in his mouth. He keeps his tone as casual as he can, not wanting to scare the other man off. 

“Mardon broke Jesse and me out to kill you,” Leonard replies. He sounds out of it, though, off kilter, like the world of colour Iris has just opened up to him beyond blues and reds and purples is far more distracting than he anticipated it to be. 

To be fair, Iris looks about the same way. 

“I was thinking I might help you stop them,” Leonard adds. “Consider it a Christmas gift.” 

Barry shakes his head. “Leonard,” he sighs, and Leonard smiles. Barry really, really likes that smile. 

“Assuming it goes well, then we can talk about making this more of a permanent arrangement.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi on [tumblr](http://asexual-fandom-queen.tumblr.com/).


End file.
